The USA is already a Totalitarian State with a Ministry of Propaganda that works overtime to generate a flimsy illusion of “democracy.”

Is your “democracy” (or republic) actually a Totalitarian State? That is, is it a “democracy” or “republic” in name only? To find out, take this quick quiz.

1. Does your government (federal, state and local) seize citizens’ assets without due process? In other words, the rule of law is dead; the state is the law. If the answer is yes, Your “democracy” is already a Totalitarian State. The answer in the USA is a definitive “yes.”

2. Does your government impose tyranny by complexity? If so, the average citizen lacks the wealth and connections needed to fight the seizure of private property without due process or recourse.

In the USA, the answer is “yes,” the government is a tyranny by complexity.

3. Is your government essentially “for sale” to wealthy elites? If the answer is yes, Your “democracy” is already a Totalitarian State–or more accurately, a fascist Totalitarian State.

4. Does your government spy on its entire citizenry? If the answer is yes, Your “Democracy” is already a Totalitarian State. The answer in the USA is a definitive “yes.”

Well, you have your answer: the USA is already a Totalitarian State with a Ministry of Propaganda that works overtime to generate a flimsy illusion of “democracy.” Please read the following links if you seek documentation of these systemic abuses of centralized power.

Orwell and Kafka Do America: How the Government Steals Your Money–“Legally,” Of Course (March 24, 2015)

Government in the USA is expropriating the private property of its citizenry without due process on a vast scale. I have provided documentation of this extraordinary reality many times over the years.

The various levels of government have a variety of “legal” (haha) means to steal your property without due process or recourse: civil forfeiture, absurdly expensive traffic fines that lead to jail sentences in the local debtors prison-gulag, forfeiture of assets, including land, should government agents find the marijuana plants they planted on your property (surprise!), the state steals your money in a bank account and notifies you after the fact that the state suspects you owe it taxes, though they have zero evidence of that claim–and on and on.

The courts place no limits on the central state’s power, for they are simply one side of the same statist coin, and so we have a totalitarian kleptocracy that in true Orwellian fashion claims it is a functioning “democracy”:

Criminalizing Poverty For Profit: Local Government’s New Debtors Prisons (October 20, 2009)

“Upholding the Law” or Simply Theft by Other Means? (October 26, 2009)

Theft By Other Means II: When the State Steals Property, Is It Not Theft? (November 10, 2009

State Over-Reach: Stripmining the Citizenry for Fun and Profit (November 13, 2009)

Death of Donald P. Scott (Wikipedia); (source):

“In October of 1992, millionaire recluse Donald Scott and his bride of two months, Frances Plante Scott, lived in a storybook wooded valley in the mountains high above Malibu, Calif. Trails End Ranch is almost completely surrounded by state and Federal park land, and the neighboring government entities had made numerous attempts to buy out Scott and annex his property.

Stymied in their attempt to buy the Scott ranch, government officials hit on an alternative plan. Contending an officer had seen “marijuana plants growing under the trees” during a drug-seeking overflight, agents from various jurisdictions gathered quietly outside the locked gate to the ranch in the morning mists of Oct. 2, 1992.

After greedily studying the maps of the 200 acres of prime land they were told they’d be able to grab under federal asset seizure laws should they find as few as 14 marijuana plants, they cut the chain on the gate with bolt-cutters and raced a mile up the dirt drive to the ranch, complete with police dogs.

Frances Scott was in the kitchen, brewing her morning coffee, when dozens of men in plainclothes and brandishing guns — no badges or warrants in evidence — came swarming in. Understandably, she screamed for her husband, still asleep upstairs.

Donald Scott, 63, came hurrying down the stairs, a handgun held over his head. The officers shouted for him to lower his weapon. He did. They shot him dead.”

Your government in action–completely legally, of course. I hope you approve. The irony of tragedies like this is that when young Americans faced similar “law enforcement” tactics in the late 1960s and early 1970s via COINTELPRO and other blatant violations of constitutional rights, we were written off as radical hippies who were a threat to something (certainly not democracy, but “something.” Like perhaps an illegal war and an out-of-control secret government?)

Now that average citizens are facing similar tactics, they might find it interesting to study the COINTELPRO campaign of the FBI and other “law enforcement” officials against the anti-Vietnam War movement three decades ago.

According to attorney Brian Glick in his book War at Home, the FBI used four main methods during COINTELPRO:

1. Infiltration: Agents and informers did not merely spy on political activists. Their main purpose was to discredit and disrupt. Their very presence served to undermine trust and scare off potential supporters. The FBI and police exploited this fear to smear genuine activists as agents.

2. Psychological Warfare From the Outside: The FBI and police used a myriad of other “dirty tricks” to undermine progressive movements. They planted false media stories and published bogus leaflets and other publications in the name of targeted groups. They forged correspondence, sent anonymous letters, and made anonymous telephone calls. They spread misinformation about meetings and events, set up pseudo movement groups run by government agents, and manipulated or strong-armed parents, employers, landlords, school officials and others to cause trouble for activists.

3. Harassment Through the Legal System: The FBI and police abused the legal system to harass dissidents and make them appear to be criminals. Officers of the law gave perjured testimony and presented fabricated evidence as a pretext for false arrests and wrongful imprisonment. They discriminatorily enforced tax laws and other government regulations and used conspicuous surveillance, “investigative” interviews, and grand jury subpoenas in an effort to intimidate activists and silence their supporters.

4. Extralegal Force and Violence: The FBI conspired with local police departments to threaten dissidents; to conduct illegal break-ins in order to search dissident homes; and to commit vandalism, assaults, beatings and assassinations. The object was to frighten, or eliminate, dissidents and disrupt their movements.

I’ve published many first-hand accounts of the kleptocratic predation of the state of California. I invite you to read this carefully:

Welcome to the Predatory State of California–Even If You Don’t Live There (March 20, 2012)

First the state steals the $1,343 and authorizes its parasitic predatory bag-“person” Wells Fargo Bank to steal another $100 for handling the state’s theft.

A week or two later the citizen is notified of the theft as a fait accompli. Now the onus is on the law-abiding citizen to attempt to reclaim his own money from a distant, all-powerful Kafkaesque state agency. How can this be legal in a nation supposedly operating under rule of law?

Let’s be very clear about what happens here in America on a daily basis:

1. The state (or other agency of government) steals citizen’s money without due process.

2. Then, in a move akin to the executioner making the condemned buy his own death bullet, the state authorizes the “too big to fail” corporate bank which received billions in taxpayer bailouts to steal $100 from the citizen for the digital theft of his money by the state.

3. If the citizen needed that money to pay rent, buy medication to stay alive, etc., tough luck, Buckwheat, the state of California has your money before they notify you of the purported tax liability and now you enter the Kafkaesque insanity of pleading for a “refund” of your own money from an agency designed to thwart transparency and the reclamation of your own money.

So if you get evicted and are living in a cardboard box and pass away due to inability to buy your meds, hey, the State of California’s political class and special interests couldn’t care less: they want your money and the rule of law doesn’t apply to them.

If you understand that a purported tax liability is one issue and due process is another far more important issue, then you understand that we now live in an totalitarian nation where “rule of law” is only invoked at the convenience of the political and financial Elites for propaganda purposes.

The state of California has three basic methods of looting law-abiding citizens:

1. The old “you didn’t pay a $25 filing fee, the fine is now $499 which we took from your bank account.” Never mind you have the cancelled check endorsed by the state, proving they received it and cashed it; the Board of Kafkaesque Authority claims “we didn’t get the check” and loots your account for the $499 (true story.)

2. “Fishing expeditions” where companies and citizens are dunned for taxes and fees they might owe, though there is no evidence they do in fact owe fees and taxes. I received many emails describing these fishing expeditions, for example, merely having a license is “evidence” that you must have unreported income.

3. Enforce all sorts of dubious claims, most importantly:

A. That anyone collecting a pension from work performed while residing in California is liable for California taxes on that pension, regardless of where they live;

B. Any income resulting from something invented in California must be reported as income in California, regardless of where the income is derived from or where the inventor now lives.

In other words, residency has no meaning. Any income remotely connected to California–for example, you had the idea while residing in the state–obligates you to pay California income tax on that idea in perpetuity.

You know the dominant emotion that the government at every level generates in law-abiding, taxpaying citizens? Fear. And for good reason.

Welcome to the United States of Orwell, Part 1: Our One Last Chance to Preserve the Bill of Rights (March 26, 2012)

Welcome to the United States of Orwell, Part 2: Law-Abiding Taxpayers Are Treated as Criminals While the Real Criminals Go Free (March 27, 2012)

“I received a letter last year that we owed the state of California’s Franchise Tax Board $90,000 for taxes in the year 2008. We replied to the Franchise Tax board in a similar manner as RT stating that:

— Did not reside in California in 2008

— Did not file a State income tax return in California in 2008

— Did not have any outstanding tax issues with California in 2008

— Did no business in California in 2008

— Owned no property in California in 2008

The CA Franchise Tax board responded by putting a lien on us in the state – fortunately, our banks and assets have no business in CA or I am certain our accounts would have been robbed as well.

After a great deal of uncertainty and angst, I found an accountant in CA who advised us that we needed to file a complete CA tax return for 2008 even though we did not owe any tax. We filed the return and received a response that we owed the state $625 to cover the State’s collection fees. We paid the fee and within two weeks received a “refund” check for the $625.

On reflection, we felt as if we had been “held up” by some powerful gangsters and if it had not been for an honest tax accountant we would have suffered much financial damage.”

Welcome to the United States of Orwell, Part 3: We had to Destroy Democracy in Order to Save It (March 28, 2012)

Welcome to the United States of Orwell, Part 4: “Consumer Protection” Just Another Federal Reserve Power Grab (March 29, 2012)

The Dodd-Frank bill, like Obamacare, is tyranny by complexity. Consider the Glass-Steagall Act, at 37 pages in length, and the 2,319-page monstrosity of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

If you still doubt the government is the tool of elites, please read this:

The Purchase of Our Republic (by Y. Falkson) (June 5, 2014)

Centralization and sociopathology are two sides of one coin: the central state:

Centralization and Sociopathology (May 21, 2013)

At the lower levels of the kleptocracy, employees of the government enrich themselves by legalizing their own looting.

Pay Our Pensions Or We’ll Throw You in Jail: the Legalization of Looting (March 19, 2014)

“Improving Public Safety” and Theft By Other Means (January 15, 2010)

What happens to once-legitimate governments that devolve into totalitarian kleptocracies? They lose their legitimacy (“the Mandate of Heaven”) and fall.

Smith’s Neofeudalism Principle #1: If the citizenry cannot replace a kleptocratic authoritarian government and/or limit the power of the financial Aristocracy at the ballot box, the nation is a democracy in name only.

This article was originally seen at TheDailySheeple.com and was authored by Charles Hugh Smith

The post Is Your Government a Democracy or a Totalitarian State? appeared first on We Are Change.

RETRACTION –

DISCLAIMER: THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN DISPUTED BY THE DURAN AND OTHERS STATING THAT THE NEWS SOURCE “Ilam al Harbi” DOES NOT EXIST.

Article via ZeroHedge

A statement issued on Sunday by a joint command centre consisting of forces of Russian, Iran and allied militia alliance supporting Syrian President Bashar al Assad said that Friday’s US strike on the Syrian air base crossed “red lines” and it would “respond with force” to any new aggression while increasing their level of support to their ally.

In the statement published by the group on media outlet Ilam al Harbi, the pro-Assad alliances says that “what America waged in an aggression on Syria is a crossing of red lines. From now on we will respond with force to any aggressor or any breach of red lines from whoever it is and America knows our ability to respond well.”

Earlier on Sunday the UK’s Defence Secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, demanded Russia rein in Mr Assad (by which he really meant be willing to accept a new Syrian regime with a pro-western puppet leader, and one who is willing to allow the Qatar gas pipeline to cross the country on its way to Europe.

Fallon also claimed that Moscow is “responsible for every civilian death” in the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhun and said Putin was responsible for the brutal killings “by proxy”, because it was the Syrian president’s “principal backer.” The defense minister said the attack had happened “on their watch” and that Vladimir Putin must now live up to previous promises that Mr Assad’s chemical weapons had been destroyed.  His comments came after Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson pulled out of a Moscow visit hours before he was due to fly.
* * *

Finally, for those who are unclear about the core geopolitical tensions that are at the base of the long-running Syrian proxy war, the answer is – as so often tends to be – commodities and specifically natural gas, as we first explained in 2013, and as summarized in the following October 2016 article courtesy of Eric Zuesse (see also “Competing Gas Pipelines Are Fueling The Syrian War & Migrant Crisis“)

The Oil-Gas War Over Syria (In 4 Maps)

Turkey’s Anadolu News Agency, though government-run, is providing remarkably clear and reliable diagrammatic descriptions of the current status of the U.S – and – fundamentalist – Sunni, versus Russia – and – Shia – and – NON – fundamentalist – Sunni, sides, in the current oil-and-gas war in the Middle East, for control over territory in Syria, for construction of oil-and-gas pipelines through Syria supplying fuel into the world’s largest energy-market: Europe. Russia is now the dominant supplier of both oil and gas, but its ally Iran is a Shiite gas-powerhouse that wants to share the market there, and Russia has no objection.

Qatar is a Sunni gas-powerhouse and wants to become the main supplier of gas there, and Saudi Arabia is a Sunni oil-powerhouse, which wants to become the major supplier of oil, but Saudi oil and Qatari gas would be pipelined through secular-controlled (Assad’s) Syria, and this is why the U.S. and its fundamentalist-Sunni allies, the Sauds, and Qataris, are using Al Qaeda and other jihadists to conquer enough of a strip through Syria so that U.S. companies such as Halliburton will be able safely to place pipelines there, to be marketed in Europe by U.S. firms such as Exxon. Iran also wants to pipeline its gas through Syria, and this is one reason why Iran is defending Syria’s government, against the U.S.-Saudi-Qatari-jihadist invasion, which is trying to overthrow and replace Assad.

Here are the most-informative of Anadolu’s war-maps:

The first presents the effort by many countries to eliminate ISIS control over the large Iraqi city of Mosul. A remarkably frank remark made in this map is “An escape corridor into Syria will be left for Daesh [ISIS] so they can vacate Mosul” – an admission that the U.S. – Saudi – Qatari team want the ISIS jihadists who are in Mosul to relocate into Syria to assist the U.S. – Saudi – Qatari effort there to overthrow and replace the Assad government: 

The second is about the Egyptian government’s trying to assist the Syrian government’s defense against the Saudi – U.S. – Qatari invasion of Syria, at Aleppo, where Syria’s Al Qaeda branch is trying to retain its current control over part of that large city. The Saud family are punishing the Egyptian government for that:

Here is Russia’s proposed gas-pipeline, which would enable Russia to reduce its dependence upon Ukraine (through which Russia currently pipes its gas into Europe). Obama conquered and took over Ukraine in February 2014 via his coup that overthrew the democratically elected neutralist Ukrainian President there:

In addition, there is the following map from oil-price.com:

That map shows the competing Shiia (Russia-backed) and Sunni (U.S.-backed) gas-pipelines into Europe — the central issue in the invasion and defense of Syria.

On 21 September 2016, Gareth Porter headlined “The War Against the Assad Regime Is Not a ‘Pipeline War’”, and he pointed out some errors in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s account that had been published under the headline “Syria: Another Pipeline War”. Porter argued: “It’s easy to understand why that explanation would be accepted by many anti-war activists: it is in line with the widely accepted theory that all the US wars in the Middle East have been ‘oil wars’ — about getting control of the petroleum resources of the region and denying them to America’s enemies.”

But the ‘pipeline war’ theory is based on false history and it represents a distraction from the real problem of US policy in the Middle East — the US war state’s determination to hold onto its military posture in the region. Porter ignored the key question there, as to why the US war state has a determination to hold onto its military posture in the region. Opening and protecting potential oil-gas-pipeline routes are important reasons why. Clearly, Kennedy’s documentation that the CIA was trying as early as 1949 to overthrow Syria’s secular government so as to allow to the Sauds a means of cheaply transporting their oil through Syria into Europe, remains unaffected by any of the objections that Porter raised to Kennedy’s article. The recent portion of Kennedy’s timeline is affected, but not his basic argument.

Furthermore, any military strategist knows that the US war state is intimately connected to the U.S. oil-and-gas industries, including pipelines (oilfield services) as well as marketing (Exxon etc.). And Porter got entirely wrong what that connection (which he ignored) actually consists of: it consists of U.S. government taxpayer-funded killers for those U.S. international corporations. Here is how Barack Obama put it, when addressing graduating cadets at West Point, America’s premier military-training institution:

Russia’s aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China’s economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle classes compete with us, and governments seek a greater say in global forums. And even as developing nations embrace democracy and market economies, 24-hour news and social media makes it impossible to ignore the continuation of sectarian conflicts and failing states and popular uprisings that might have received only passing notice a generation ago.

 

It will be your generation’s task to respond to this new world. The question we face, the question each of you will face, is not whether America will lead, but how we will lead – not just to secure our peace and prosperity, but also extend peace and prosperity around the globe.

He was saying there that America’s military is in service to U.S.-based international corporations in their competition against those of Russia, Brazil, China, India, and anywhere else in which “rising middle classes compete with us”. Those places are what Gareth Porter referred to as “America’s enemies”.

Economic competitors are “enemies”. Obama thinks that way, and even a progressive journalist such as Porter doesn’t place into a skeptical single – quotation – mark – surround, the phrase ‘America’s enemies’ when that phrase is used in this equational context. On both the right (Obama) and the left (Porter), the equation of a government and of the international corporations that headquarter in its nation — the treatment of the military as being an enforcement-arm for the nation’s international corporations — is simply taken for granted, not questioned, not challenged.

RFK Jr. was correct, notwithstanding some recent timeline-errors. Syria is “Another Pipeline War”, and Obama is merely intensifying it. (On 9 November 2015, I offered a different account than RFK Jr. provided of the recent history — the Obama portion — of the longstanding U.S. aggression against Syria; and it links back to Jonathan Marshall’s excellent articles on that, and to other well-sourced articles, in addition to primary sources, none of which contradict RFK Jr.’s basic view, “Syria: Another Pipeline War”).

Another portion of Porter’s commentary is, however, quite accurate: America’s ‘Defense’ (or mass-killing-abroad) industries (such as Lockheed Martin) are not merely servants of the U.S. government, but are also served by the U.S. government: “the US war state’s determination to hold onto its military posture in the region” is protection of the major market — the Middle Eastern market — for U.S. ‘Defense’ products and services. It’s not only America’s firms in the oil, gas, and pipelines, industries, which benefit from America’s military; it is also America’s firms in the mass-killing industries, that do.

To the extent that the public (here including Barack Obama and Gareth Porter) do not condemn the presumption that “the business of America is business”, or that a valid function of U.S. – taxpayer – funded military and other foreign-affairs operations is to serve the stockholders of U.S. international corporations, the hell (such as in Syria) will continue. Gareth Porter got lost among the trees because he failed to see (and to point to) that forest.

This article was originally seen at ZeroHedge.com and was authored by Tyler Durden.

The post Russia and Iran Remind U.S. that Syria has Allies Who Will Respond with Force if Further Provoked appeared first on We Are Change.

If you thought that life in America’s college campuses had reached peak crazy, you’d be wrong. It turns out that the politically correct culture which has entangled our upper education system, is taking a turn for the Orwellian (if it hadn’t already).

Adam Steinbaugh of the Washington Examiner has been investigating these schools, and he’s found that the administrators are encouraging students to snitch on each other (and their professors). Not to expose criminal behavior or cheating, but to target inappropriate speech. He found that 230 colleges have what are called “Bias Response Teams,” which are made up of either campus cops or administrators, and whose sole job is to investigate mostly anonymous claims of offensive speech.

And as you might expect, these schools define “bias” in extremely vague and subjective terms. What may shock most people however, is that it isn’t reserved for stifling conservative opinions, as would be typical of a college campus. It can include anything that offends anyone.

At Appalachian State University, students reported on one another for chalked messages that were pro-Trump as well as chalked messages calling Trump a “RACIST.” The former were reported by students as “hate speech,” the latter “politically biased slander” that was “unlawful.”

While students at Ohio State University reported each other for comparing Hillary Clinton to Hitler, students at Texas Tech were whispering to administrators that the Black Student Union’s tweets in support of the Black Lives Matter movement offended them. Meanwhile, the University of Oregon saw it fit to dictate “community expectations” to students who had the audacity to complain about oppression.

Fortunately the punishment for expressing literally any opinion isn’t too severe. The students and professors who are ratted out are usually reprimanded by administrators, and forced to endure conversations on the Civil Rights movement, and how their words hurt others. The punishment is however, still pretty creepy.

Article was originally seen at TheDailySheeple.com and was authored by Daniel Lang

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During a meeting today at the White House with business leaders, President Trump described his ongoing efforts to deport undocumented immigrants as “a military operation,” which he described as intended to get “really bad dudes out of this country at a rate nobody’s ever seen.”

The White House insisted Trump meant what he said, and that he used the term military “as an adjective,” which correctly describes his use of the word in the sentence as a descriptor of the noun “operation.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly was very quick to publicly disagree with Trump on the assessment, insisting that there was no military role in the deportation of immigrants, and that moreover there would be “no mass deportations” carried out.

Kelly and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson found themselves forced to address Trump’s comments, because they were in Mexico City at the time and trying to keep the Mexican government apprised of US intentions with respect to the deportations as Trump was making his new declarations about their military nature.

Kelly and Tillerson assured Mexican officials that the US would continue to cooperate with them on border issues, though Mexican officials were expressing growing concerns about Trump’s apparent intention to act unilaterally.

This article was originally seen on AntiWar.com and was authored by Jason Ditz

The post Trump Refers to Deportation as a Military Operation, PR Nightmare Ensues appeared first on We Are Change.

My name is Robert, and I am a Cornell University undergraduate student. However, I’m not sure if I want to be one any more. Allow me to explain.

Cornell, as an institution, appears to be complicit in a shocking amount of ecologically destructive, academically unethical, and scientifically deceitful behavior. Perhaps the most potent example is Cornell’s deep ties to industrial GMO agriculture, and the affiliated corporations such as Monsanto. I’d like to share how I became aware of this troubling state of affairs.

Throughout my secondary education, I’ve always had a passion for science. In particular, physics and mathematics captured my fascination. My sophomore AP physics teacher, Mr. Jones, became my main source of motivation to succeed. He convinced us students that our generation was crucial to repairing humanity’s relationship to science, and how we would play key roles in solving immense global issues, such as climate change. Thank you Mr. Jones! Without your vision, I would have never had the chance to attend such an amazing university.

I came to Cornell as freshman, deeply unaware of our current GMO agriculture paradigm, and my university’s connection to it. It just wasn’t on my radar quite yet. After two years of school, I was rather uninspired to continue traditional study. I never felt quite at ease, jumping through hoops, taking classes and tests that didn’t inspire me, in exchange for a piece of paper (degree) that somehow magically granted me a superior life. I know many undergraduates fit right in with the university education model, and that’s fantastic. I certainly didn’t, and my mental and physical health began to suffer as a result. I was left with no choice but to take a leave of absence, and pursue another path.

Instead, I began to self-study nutrition in earnest, honestly, out of pure necessity. Luckily, I found Cornell Professor Emeritus T. Colin Campbell’s legendary epidemiological research on nutrition and human disease. His evidence was so clear that I quickly transitioned to a plant-based diet. This personal dietary shift had profound benefits, dispelled my depression, and led me to a deep fascination with the precursor to nutrition: agriculture. I became particularly interested in agroecology. I was astonished to learn that there existed alternatives to chemical-intensive, corporate-controlled models of agriculture, and that they were far safer, more effective, and more sustainable. During my time away from Cornell, I participated in three unique seasons of agroecological crop production, with incredible results. I am immensely grateful for these experiences.

It’s impossible to study and practice agroecology without becoming deeply aware of the other end of the spectrum: the genetic modification of our food supply, ruled by giant agribusiness corporations.

Currently, the vast majority of U.S. commodity crops (corn, soy, alfalfa, sugar beet) are genetically engineered to either withstand Roundup herbicide or produce Bt toxin pesticide. These “technologies” are ecologically damaging and unsafe. The majority of these crops go to feed animals in factory farms. The remainder generally gets converted into corn syrup, white sugar, vegetable oil, or biofuels — you know, good stuff! This combined approach of growing GMO commodity monoculture crops, and feeding them to factory-farmed livestock, is one of the most ecologically destructive forces our planet has ever seen. It’s also a leading contributor to climate change. In fact, some experts believe it to be the leading cause.

As Professor T. Colin Campbell will tell you, the foods that come from this system (animal products and processed foods) are responsible for causing the vast majority of chronic disease. That’s a story for another day.

Cornell’s GMO Propaganda Campaign

I came back to Cornell a changed person, with a drastically different perspective. I was in for quite a shock, however: I sat in on a course entitled “The GMO Debate.” I was expecting members of an intellectual community coming together, with proponents and critics of GMO food each giving the best verified evidence they had to support their cause. Given all that I had learned about GMO agriculture, I was excited to participate for the “GMO skeptic” side.

The GMO Debate course, which ran in the fall of 2015, was a blatant display of unscientific propaganda in an academic setting. There were a total of 4 active professors in the course, and several guest speakers. They took turns each session defending industrial agriculture and biotechnology with exactly zero critical examination of GMOs. In spite of the course’s name, there was a complete lack of actual “debate.” Here are some of the more memorable claims I heard that fall semester:

* GMO food is necessary to feed the world
* There is no instance of harm from agricultural GMOs
* Glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup, is safer than coffee and table salt
* If you believe in science, you must believe in GMO technology
* The science of genetic engineering is well understood
* “What off-target effects?” … when asked about the proven biochemical risks of GE technology
* Vitamin A rice is curing children of Vitamin A deficiency (even though the IRRI, the research institute responsible for rolling it out, says it won’t be ready for some years)
* Current pesticides and herbicides don’t pose an ecological or human health risk
* Bt is an organic pesticide, therefore Bt GMO crops are safe and pose no additional risk
* Bt crops work just fine — but we are now engineering insects as a complementary technology — to make the Bt work better
* “Are you scared of GMO insects? Because you shouldn’t be.”
* GMO crops are the most rigorously tested crops in the history of food
* “If [renowned environmentalist] Rachel Carson were alive today, she would be pro-GMO”.

It gets better. During the semester, emails were released following a Freedom of Information Act request, showing that all four of the professors in the class, as well as several guest speakers, the head of Cornell’s pro-GMO group “Alliance for Science,” and the Dean of the College of Arts and Life Sciences were all copied in on emails with Monsanto. This was part of a much larger circle of academics promoting GMO crops on behalf of the biotech industry. Jonathan Latham PhD, virologist and editor of independentsciencenews.org, documented this in an article titled “The Puppetmasters of Academia.” I highly recommend giving it a read, for further context.

Perhaps saddest of all was the inclusion of several visiting African agriculture-academics in the course. They were brought here by the “Cornell Alliance for Science. ” This organization was completely funded by a $5.6 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and appears to espouse only pro-GMO rhetoric. For those of you who are unaware, Bill Gates is a proponent of using agricultural biotechnology in Africa, India, and other developing regions. So in essence, a group of African representatives got indoctrinated into the industrial and GMO agriculture framework, and were sent home to disseminate this information … after all, who could question the expertise of an Ivy League powerhouse such as Cornell?

I then learned of Cornell’s deep historic ties to the biotech industry, which explained what I witnessed in the “GMO Debate” course. Notable examples include the invention of both the controversial bovine growth hormone, and the particle bombardment (“gene gun”) method of creating GMO crops. Both of these cases are connected to Monsanto.

To say the least, I was completely stunned.

What I’m Going to Do About All of This

You didn’t think I was just going to complain about a pro-GMO, industry-sponsored Cornell all day, did you? Good, because I have come up with a plan to create actual, lasting change on campus: a student-led, expert-backed, evidence-based GMO course.

I have decided to host an independent course on the current GMO paradigm, in response to Cornell’s course. It will be held on campus, but will have zero influence from Cornell or any biotech organization. Every Wednesday evening, from September 7th to November 16, we will host a lecture. This lecture series is completely free, open to the entire Cornell community and broader public, and will be published online (for free, forever) at my project, gmowtf.com.

There will be several experts and scientists coming in to lecture for this course. Frances Moore Lappé, of ‘Diet for a Small Planet’ and ‘World Hunger: 10 Myths’ fame, will be introducing the course on September 7, via video presentation. She will be speaking on how GMO agriculture is unnecessary to end world hunger.

Steven Druker is a public interest attorney and author of the powerful book ‘Altered Genes, Twisted Truth: How the Venture to Genetically Engineer Our Food Has Subverted Science, Corrupted Government, and Systematically Deceived the Public,’ which Jane Goodall (in her foreword) hails as “one of the most important books in the last 50 years.” He will be giving two lectures that elaborate on the themes in the book’s subtitle and demonstrate that the GMO venture has been chronically and crucially dependent on deception, and could not survive without it.

Jonathan Latham PhD will be giving two lectures, on the dangers of Roundup Ready and Bt crops, respectively. He will also be participating in our special October 5 debate, representing the anti-GMO panel, alongside Michael Hansen PhD, a senior scientist for the Consumers Union. Jonathan has direct experience genetically modifying organisms, so his expertise is guaranteed.

Allison Wilson PhD is a geneticist and editor/science director of the Bioscience Resource Project. She will be giving a lecture on how GMOs are actually created, to dispel any industry myths of precision, accuracy, or deep genetic understanding.

Belinda Martineau PhD is a geneticist with an interesting history — she was on the team of genetic engineers that created the first commercial GM food crop, the Flavr Savr Tomato. She authored a book on her experience, titled “First Fruit: The Creation of the Flavr Savr Tomato and the Birth of Biotech Foods.” Her lecture will be a historical and personal account of the science, regulation, and commercialization of genetically engineered foods, effectively giving context for today’s GMO paradigm.

My personal scientific hero, T. Colin Campbell, who started me on this whole journey years ago, will not be speaking on GMOs per se … but will address some critically important, related topics: academic freedom and scientific integrity. He began his Cornell career over half a century ago, and has “seen it all.” He has fascinating anecdotes that will illuminate these campus-wide issues beautifully.

Jane Goodall, if you’re reading this, you are personally invited to take time out of your busy schedule to come and give the final capstone lecture. I know how passionate you are about saving our species, our planet, and all of its beautiful inhabitants. Your wise presence in this project would take it to the next level. Alternatively, please consider a short video interview. This offer stands indefinitely. Same for Vandana Shiva!

All in all, our independent GMO lecture series will focus on real threats and real solutions to our current ecological crisis … and perhaps most importantly, will feature 100% less Monsanto influence than Cornell’s course! Sounds good to me.

Taking It Further

I’m on my second leave of absence from Cornell to work on this project, and due to my experiences, I have somewhat given up on a Cornell degree … not that I was ever intensely focused on attaining one. This GMO course is by far the most important thing I can do with my Cornell “career.” However, it is just the beginning of my plan.

Remember the $5.6 million Bill Gates gave Cornell through his foundation, to push the pro-GMO propaganda? Well, to coincide with our course, we’re launching an initiative to raise the same amount of money or more to sponsor more appropriate forms of agriculture, educational outreach, and activism.

Go to gmowtf.com for more information, but in essence, this would finance:

* Continued grassroots educational activism at Cornell, and similar programs in other compromised universities (UC Davis and Berkeley, University of Florida, etc.) across the country.
* A plant-based, NON-GMO independent dining hall for Cornell students. It would source as close to 100% organic and local food as possible. Ideally, it would be cheaper than Cornell’s plan (plant-based eaters won’t subsidize expensive meat and dairy for omnivorous eaters).
* gmowtf.com as a permanent, free, independent, constantly updated resource for GMO science, policy, news, etc. … also the GMO course would remain online
* My dream: a research farm focused on rigorous analysis of agroecological practices. There is an infinitum of fascinatingly effective agroecological techniques that are underrepresented in the scientific community (in favor of faddist, ineffective GMO “technology”).
* Completely paying off student debt for a group of 10-15 undergraduates who are willing to help spread this message to the Cornell community.

Mr. Gates, if you truly care about feeding the world in a safe and sustainable manner, and if you are truly dedicated to science and to the kind of open, fact-based discourse on which it depends, I implore you to learn the important facts about which you have apparently been misinformed — and which are being systematically misrepresented by the Cornell organization you are funding.

You can easily gain illumination by reading “Altered Genes, Twisted Truth” by Steven Druker, one of our key contributors to our independent GMO course. You might find Chapter 11, on the ramifications and risks of altering complex information systems, of particular interest. You are, after all, the world’s most famous software developer!

As that chapter demonstrates, biotechnicians are significantly altering the most complex yet least understood group of information systems on earth — the ones that undergird the development and function of living organisms. Yet, they fail to implement the kind of safeguards that software engineers have learned are imperative when making even minor revisions to life-critical human-made systems. Can this be legitimately called science-based engineering?

Bill, feel free to reach out to any of the experts in our course, and don’t be hesitant to update your views on GMO agriculture in light of new understanding. A genuine scientist lives by this principle.

I invite you all to go to gmowtf.com and explore my proposals more. Please bear with the construction of the site in the coming weeks, in preparation for our amazing GMO course!

We live in somewhat of a scientific dark age. Our universities have become extensions of corporate power, at the cost of our health, livelihoods, and ecology. This has to stop, yesterday.

We cannot afford to spread lies to our undergraduate students. Cornell, please reconsider your ways. Until you do, I will be doing everything in my power to counter your industry GMO propaganda efforts with the facts.

With love,
Robert Schooler

Article originally seen at AltHealthworks.com and was authored by Nick Meyer

The post Cornell Student Exposes the GMO Propaganda that is Pushed in University appeared first on We Are Change.

According to a report published by the Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group, the Department of Homeland Security, under the Obama administration, attempted to hack the Indiana State electoral system nearly 15,000 times. The news comes in the wake of months of post-election talk the Russians helped Donald Trump get elected, thwarting any chance of Hillary Clinton to win in November of 2016.

Yet even with the bipartisan parade of politicians, including former president Barack H. Obama, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and others, the American people have not been presented one shred of evidence to suggest the Russians attempted to meddle with the elections. Free thinkers everywhere are scratching their heads, and asking themselves if they’re supposed to believe the so-called leaders in Washington, without being presented with any proof the Kremlin had anything to do with Clinton’s loss.

The bully in Washington may have used his executive powers to go after states such as Indiana, that “resisted then-President Barack Obama’s attempt to increase federal involvement in state and local election systems by designating them as ‘critical infrastructure’ for national security,” writes DCNF’s Richard Pollack. To better describe the hacking attempt, Pollack described it as a “scanning assault.”

Apparently, the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) aren’t too happy about the intrusive big-brother cyber attacks by the Feds, and are calling on Trump to overturn the measures put in place by his predecessor to increase federal involvement in their election systems. Once again, the states are pushing back against executive overreach by a president who is no longer in office, which may serve to demonstrate just how long-lasting Obama’s rule-based, executive order leadership actually is.

Seemingly miffed by the IT intrusion is Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson, who also serves as president of NASS. She told Pollack, “we know that between November 1 and December 16, we were scanned with about 14,800 scans, nearly 15,000 different times,” an action which was traced back to a Department of Homeland Security computer’s IP address, which was the same system used to hack into Georgia’s electoral system as well, making it the second time the federal government has been implicated in attempting to hack into state election systems. She points the finger squarely at the Obama administration’s DHS, saying she believed the scans were possibly retaliatory since the state chose not to allow DHS to get their hands on Indiana’s electoral infrastructure. “We declined their assistance,” she said but added, “our voter registration system was not penetrated.”

Lawson points the finger squarely at the Obama administration’s DHS, saying she believed the scans were possibly retaliatory since the state chose not to allow DHS to get their hands on Indiana’s electoral infrastructure. “We declined their assistance,” she said but added, “our voter registration system was not penetrated.”

The post Indiana Officials Expose Evidence of Electoral Hacking by the DHS appeared first on We Are Change.

As protesters at the site of the Dakota Access Pipeline make their last stand against police crackdowns ordered by North Dakota’s governor to evacuate their campsites, protesters in Florida are also continuing their fight against another contentious pipeline.

Two protesters, Nicolas Segal-Wright, 26, and Karrie Kay Ford, 29, were arrested Wednesday after placing themselves 250-feet into a segment of the Sabal Trail Transmission pipeline, a joint project between Spectra Energy Corp., NextEra Energy Inc., and Duke Energy. According to ClickOrlando, a local Florida outlet, Marion County Sheriff’s office said Segal-Wright and Ford used a “device to lock each other up making it harder for law enforcement to get to them.”

“We’re staying here,” Ford said in a video recorded from inside the pipeline. “We are locking down. We’re not going anywhere.”

Ford claimed police aggressively attempted to remove her from the pipeline. “They’re banging on the pipeline with hammers,” she said in her video. “And they’re sending dogs to the entrance of the pipeline, threatening to send the dogs in. They’re threatening with tear gas. So just hold tight and, like, spread the word. Spread the word far and wide. And keep supporting us, and we’ll see if we can get you updates.”

Though the pipeline companies in charge of the Sabal Trail Transmission pipeline tout the project, claiming it will provide ample energy and economic benefits to the region, the 515-mile pipeline has faced previous protests over environmental concerns. According to the Ocala Star Banner, “the pipeline is a 515-mile, $3.2 billion endeavor that will snake through Alabama, Georgia and much of Florida, including through Marion County, while crossing 699 bodies of water along the way.” The Banner reports that at one time, “Officials with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission once shared concerns over the pipeline’s effect on the environment and karst terrain, but later flipped and approved it.”

Surrounding communities have also complained of the pipeline companies’ use of eminent domain to obtain property for the pipeline. Spectra Energy Corp., NextEra Energy Inc. (owner of FPL) and Duke Energy filed 160 lawsuits last year in attempts to seize 25 properties in Central Florida and 135 in Southeast Florida. The pipeline has also been criticized for Governor Rick Scott’s 2013 passage of two bills apparently intended to speed up the pipeline, a move considered suspicious because the governor had a stake in Spectra Energy when he approved the laws.

Though opposition to the Sabal pipeline has not received as much media attention as Dakota Access protests, there is still palpable opposition, like Ford and Segal-Wright’s demonstration Wednesday.

After refusing deputies’ requests to exit the pipeline, Marion County Fire Rescue was called to remove them. Nicolas was removed first, and Ford warned in her video that rescuers were coming for her next. She said she had “created a blockade of all our stuff so they are going to have to go through all our stuff to get to me.”

Nevertheless, she was eventually removed, and both were issued “three felony charges including grand theft for delaying the construction on the pipeline, trespassing on a posted construction site and criminal mischief. Ford is also charged with resisting without violence for refusing to unlock herself, preventing deputies from taking her into custody, according to the Sheriff’s Office,” ClickOrlando reported.

Ford was also previously arrested, along with 13 others, for protesting the pipeline in November. In the same vein, multiple protesters were arrested Wednesday in North Dakota as they peacefully resisted police encroachments on their camps.

Considering mounting environmental concerns surrounding massive pipelines throughout the United States, it’s doubtful demonstrations like these will cease anytime soon.

This article first appeared on TheAntiMedia.org and was authored by Carey Wedler

The post Protestors in Florida Arrested for Blocking Pipeline as Last Stand at Standing Rock Unfolds appeared first on We Are Change.

If Republicans in Arizona’s senate have their way, police in that state could soon have the power to seize assets and property from protesters, the Arizona Capitol Times reports.

From a February 22 article:

Claiming people are being paid to riot, Republican state senators voted Wednesday to give police new power to arrest anyone who is involved in a peaceful demonstration that may turn bad — even before anything actually happened.

SB1142 expands the state’s racketeering laws, now aimed at organized crime, to also include rioting. And it redefines what constitutes rioting to include actions that result in damage to the property of others.

But the real heart of the legislation is what Democrats say is the guilt by association — and giving the government the right to criminally prosecute and seize the assets of everyone who planned a protest and everyone who participated.

Essentially, under this bill cops could arrest anyone at a demonstration that suddenly turns violent, however peaceful it might’ve started. They would even be able to target people who had nothing to do the property damage.

Stephen Lemons, writing for the Phoenix New Times, covered a hearing on S.B. 1142 by Arizona’s Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

Highlighting that certain senate Democrats “noted the obvious: that public protests often involve different groups with varying tactics,” he pointed out that, hypothetically, peaceful protesters could be held responsible “for the violent actions of a different faction or of individuals who act out while others remain calm.”

But it gets even worse than that, as the Arizona Capitol Times pointed out Wednesday: “By including rioting in racketeering laws, it actually permits police to arrest those who are planning events.”

Planning events. Meaning cops will have the authority to investigate activists before the demonstrations even take place.

This is what Republican state senator Sonny Borrelli, the author of S.B. 1142, called targeting “the money source” in his defense of the bill before the committee meeting last week.

Citing the conservative notion that a legion of privately funded progressive protesters is clogging up governmental works all over the country, Borrelli said the law would go after those “paid to go out and create this damage.”

And if it takes cops infiltrating political groups on the taxpayers’ dime — on the razor-thin pretext of maybe preventing a potentially violent demonstration down the road — so be it, at least according to Republican attitudes in Arizona.

“I should certainly hope that our law enforcement people have some undercover people there,” state senator John Kavanagh said, referring to police authority under S.B. 1142 to investigate political demonstrations while in the planning stages.

“Wouldn’t you rather stop a riot before it starts?” he also said.

Again, potential riot.

The bigger issue at play, as noted by the Arizona Capitol Times, is the chilling effect such legislation would have on free speech. After all, if a person could get arrested for simply participating in a political demonstration — regardless of their own peaceful motives and actions — that person might decline to get involved.

S.B. 1142 would actively enforce the notion of guilt by association. If would punish the innocent who are wishing only to exercise their right of free expression, all because of the actions of criminals.

Such legislation would further complicate an environment of political unrest, made of both positive and negative forces, as State Senator Martin Quezada, Democrat out of Phoenix, highlighted Wednesday:

When people want to express themselves as a group during a time of turmoil, during a time of controversy, during a time of high emotions, that’s exactly when people gather as a community. Sometimes they yell, sometimes they scream, sometimes they go too far.

This article first appeared on TheDailySheeple.com.

The post Arizona Senate Republicans Seek to Legalize Asset Forfeiture Against Protestors appeared first on We Are Change.

Orange County, FL — If your vehicle was being towed for being illegally parked and you pulled a gun on the tow truck driver and demanded he put it down, you would be arrested for assault with a deadly weapon. However, if you do this as a police officer, you get a vacation.

Deputy Tracy Weiss with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department was given a slap on the wrist this week after begin caught on video accosting a tow truck driver.

The incident happened in April of last year. However, the ‘investigation’ wasn’t wrapped up until this month. Investigators determined that Weiss flashed her badge and grabbed her gun when she demanded that the tow truck driver drop her car that was being towed for parking illegally.

Weiss told investigators that she grabbed her gun because she didn’t know if the driver would be “aggressive.” However, the only one aggressive in the video below is Weiss.

Last April, Weiss was parked at the Starlight Ranch retirement community on a sidewalk. The community has a policy that forbids vehicles to block the sidewalk.

When Weiss noticed that her truck was being towed, she jumped into another vehicle and then drove the wrong way down a one-way street to block the driver in who had towed her car.

When she exits the vehicle, according to the tow truck driver, she had her gun drawn. When he saw the gun, the driver pulled out his camera phone and began to record.

“I’m a cop. Drop my truck,” yelled Weiss.

“You need to put your gun away,” replied the driver.

“You see a gun?” Weiss asked, acting as if she didn’t have one once she saw the camera.

“Yes. It’s in your pocket,” the driver said.

“I am a cop,” she yelled. “You’re going to f**king jail for stealing my car.”

“I’m not going to jail,” the driver responded.

“Whatever,” Weiss said before storming off to wait for backup.

When deputies arrived, they confirmed that Weiss did, in fact, have a gun.

“She had a gun in her hand pointed at me,” said the driver.

The deputies refused to arrest the driver and allowed him to tow the truck as he was well within the law to do so. Also, instead of the normal impound fee of $62.50, Weiss had to pay double as she held the driver up for more than 15 minutes.

However, Weiss was not arrested.

For admittedly assaulting a man with a deadly weapon and abusing her authority, Weiss was later facing aggravated assault charges. However, likely due to her status as a cop, the state attorney’s office declined to prosecute her.

One would think that a cop, would, at the very least, be fired for such abuse of authority and misconduct — especially after it was captured on video. However, one would be wrong. It was announced by the department this week that Weiss received a 40-hour suspension which was merely docked from her vacation time.

“The penalty that was given to her, I find it, at this point, to be ridiculous,” said the driver, who asked not to be identified.

According to WFTV 9, the driver said he has quit working in Orange County because of the incident.

“I just feel sorry for whoever else is going to come across her path,” he said.

This is Weiss’ second such incident in which she’s been suspended. Her disciplinary record revealed she was suspended in 2008 for violating OCSO’s use of authority policy.

Weiss was suspended for 21 hours without pay after she was accused of acting inappropriately regarding a business arrangement, the Sheriff’s Office’s said.

Below is a video that epitomizes the divide in America today that continues to grow between the police and the policed. Until officers like Weiss are actually held accountable, this divide will continue to grow.

This article first appeared on TheFreeThoughtProject.com and was authored by Matt Agorist

The post Off-Duty Florida Cop Pulls Gun on Driver Towing her Personal Vehicle Which was Illegally Parked appeared first on We Are Change.

This criminalization of everyday life is not just insanely costly and insanely counter-productive–it’s insanely punitive.

The average person has little exposure to the criminalization of everyday enterprise in America via over-regulation and outsized penalties for even accidental violations of rules and regulations. One field that continues to be burdened with excessive/counter-productive regulations and outsized penalties is the practice of medicine.

I received the following email from a physician correspondent:

“As you will see, physicians have to deal with the federal government’s increasingly crazy and copious rules (like which patients they can screen for disease and how often).

The following is an email ad I received for an expensive service that provides no benefit to the ill and injured of America. It’s bureaucratic nonsense.”

Here is the email ad:

Can you afford a $1.1 million penalty and a 50-year exclusion from Medicare? That’s what one New Jersey provider is facing. And he’s not alone. In the last couple of months a facility in Utah is now under a 30-year exclusion, and a New York physician is now excluded from Medicare for five years.

These penalties and exclusions not only affect those providers that are intentionally fraudulent. Even an innocent mistake can land you in serious legal and financial hot water. Being tagged as “excluded” by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) can crush your practice — especially considering the new guidelines that went into effect just a couple of days ago (on Feb. 13th).

Tomorrow, a leading healthcare attorney will walk you through the new exclusionary rules that just took effect so that you can really understand what will keep you off of the OIG’s hit list.

Here are just a few of the practical, easy-to-implement tactics you’ll receive by attending this 60-minute online training:

–Determine specifically who you should screen (individuals and entities) and how often

–Avoid being placed on the list for lack of compliance if there is a match on your team

–Find out what other legal actions can have collateral damage resulting in exclusion

–Learn how to get reinstated onto Medicare after an exclusion period expires

–Head off the top “flags” that lead to exclusions

–Master documentation requirements making your files audit-proof

–And so much more…

To make matters worse, if you employ an excluded employee (even accidentally), any funds paid to them must be paid back to Medicare/Medicaid promptly, and if you don’t take action quickly enough your entire practice could be at risk. Are you really ready to lose serious revenue by getting thrown out of Medicare and your other private insurers?

Don’t take the chance. Invest just 60 minutes of your time and attend this step-by-step, plain-English online training session that will provide you with the tools you need to protect yourself, your staff and your practice. Don’t wait, sign up today.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of healthcare compliance costs and penalties that are far more punishing than the “crimes.” If you wonder why America pays the highest cost per person for uneven healthcare coverage and care, take a look at this chart of the administrative system that has mushroomed into an incredibly costly bureaucratic monster that provides zero care.

Add layer after layer after layer of new complex regulations to the practice of medicine, and soon enough you need millions of paper-pushing employees to monitor compliance, enforce compliance, pursue administrative and criminal charges of non-compliance, file claims and counter-claims, defend the innocent from false accusations, write hundreds of pages of new regulations, and so on.

Yes, there is a place for common-sense regulations, and procedures to vet caregivers and track standards of care, etc.

But the system is now so onerous and out of control that the practice of medicine now requires far more attorneys and compliance-regulatory-paper-pushers than it does doctors and nurses.

This is but one example of America’s obsessive penchant for criminalizing and over-regulating everyday life. No wonder America has over 20 million people with felony convictions, many for drug-related offenses that should have been treated as medical conditions (such as addiction).

In America, every “crime” deserves a heavy and often-life-destroying penalty–even non-compliance “crimes” committed by overworked innocents.

This criminalization of everyday life is not just insanely costly and insanely counter-productive–it’s insanely punitive. It is the output of a sick society, a sick culture and a sickness-unto-death system of governance.

This article first appeared on TheDailySheeple.com and was authored by Hugh Smith

The post Regulations have Made the Practice of Medicine an Obstacle Course of Criminality appeared first on We Are Change.

The phenomenon of depression is among the most common psychological disorders in the United States. It is estimated that about 16 million Americans experience a depressive episode every year, while around 350 million (5% of the world’s population) suffer from some form of depression. The symptoms vary from weight gain, weight loss, insomnia, and oversleeping to an inability to feel pleasure, sadness, and loss of focus. The causes for depression vary as well, but common depressive episodes revolve around major events such as death, illness, and loss.

The general understanding within the medical community is that depression is a psychological disorder cured with antidepressants, a little therapy, and perhaps engagement in extracurricular and outdoor activities. However, one theory suggests depression is more than a mental disorder.

In a 2009 publication by Paul W. Andrews of Virginia Commonwealth University and J. Anderson Thompson, Jr. of the University of Virginia, depression was observed as an evolutionary trait for extensive analysis and problem-solving. The abstract of the publication reads:

“[…] Depressed people often have severe, complex problems, and rumination is a common feature. Depressed people often believe that their ruminations give them insight into their problems, but clinicians often view depressive rumination as pathological because it is difficult to disrupt and interferes with the ability to concentrate on other things. Abundant evidence indicates that depressive rumination involves the analysis of episode-related problems. Because analysis is time consuming and requires sustained processing, disruption would interfere with problem-solving.”

The paper continues:

“The analytical rumination (AR) hypothesis proposes that depression is an adaptation that evolved as a response to complex problems and whose function is to minimize disruption of rumination and sustain analysis of complex problems. It accomplishes this by giving episode-related problems priority access to limited processing resources, by reducing the desire to engage in distracting activities (anhedonia), and by producing psychomotor changes that reduce exposure to distracting stimuli. Because processing resources are limited, the inability to concentrate on other things is a tradeoff that must be made to sustain analysis of the triggering problem […]”  

In other words, the inability to feel pleasure or enjoyment during depressive episodes may be the brain ridding itself of distractions to focus on solving the problem causing the depression. This challenges the familiar remedy of going out or having fun as an effective approach, as this theory suggests the whole point of depression is to analyze and solve. The research and their sources can all be found in the publication “The Bright Side of Being Blue: Depression as an Adaptation for Analyzing Complex Problems,” which can be read for free here.

Interestingly, this theory supports the idea that self-inquiry, if guided and structured, can effectively combat depressive episodes. This common method is referred to as “The Socratic Method.” It is a system of questioning based on the teachings of ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. In this method, a therapist suggests questions for the patient to ask themselves. This series of circumstantial questioning leads the patient on a path of self-analysis, dissecting their perspectives and allowing them to understand their problems and approach the roots of their depression with clarity. Critical thinking as a cure for depression. Who would have thought?

While depression is indeed complicated, and cases should not be generalized or considered the same, these theories, methods, and results do indicate it is possible that proper therapy may be more effective in treating depression than SSRIs and other mood stabilizers. While medication has been effective in treating some, it rarely acts as a long-term solution, hence the common scenario of stacking medications on top of one another to combat each other’s side effects. Additionally, these medications don’t actually cure anything. They amount to putting a band-aid on a gaping wound that requires stitches. The problem isn’t just the bleeding — the problem is the open wound.

Addressing the roots of depression is far more important than putting the symptoms to rest while allowing the demons that create them to continue plaguing people’s minds. It simply puts a haze between the person and the influence of the disorder. An effective method of curing depression is also economically wise, especially since America, as a society, spends around $210 billion a year treating depression — and much of that money flies right into the pockets of pharmaceutical companies. However, there is hope on the horizon, as methods like problem-solving therapy and research into psychedelic treatment are becoming more common. Watch out, Big Pharma.

This article first appeared on TheAntiMedia.org and was authored by Josh Mur

The post A New Perspective on Depression – Perhaps We’ve Had it Wrong all Along appeared first on We Are Change.

Stamford, Conn. — An interracial couple in Stamford, Connecticut, is being fined $100 a day by local government for failing to remove a racial slur that was spray painted on their garage door. Despite the fine, the common law husband and wife say the graffiti will remain until authorities “do their job” and find the person or persons responsible.

“I cannot believe it. At this time, someone could write this. Those times were supposed to be way back in the ‘60s and I was born in ‘61,” 56-year-old Lexene Charles told the Stamford Advocate back in mid-January when the incident took place. “It’s ridiculous for those things to be going on.”

Local police responded to the home of Charles, who is black, and his wife, Heather Lindsay, who is white, on a Saturday morning to discover someone had spray painted the n-word on the couple’s garage door.

“Our civil rights are being violated,” said Lindsay, 59, who’s lived in the home since 1990.

Stamford’s assistant police chief called the incident “disgusting” and promised it’s “something we have under investigation,” yet over a month later the couple says little by way solving the case has happened — and that now the city is actually penalizing them for failing to paint over the slur.

“The city of Stamford has issued the couple a blight citation, which carries a $100 daily fine,” the Stamford Advocate reported Monday. For her part, Lindsay doubled down on her vow to keep the slur up until authorities find those responsible and “not just cover it up and sweep it under the table as they have done in the past.”

Lindsay claims the couple’s home has been vandalized several times and that a handful of their neighbors have hurled racial slurs at her African-American husband.

The case has caught the attention of the NAACP, and representatives of both local and state chapters of that organization held a conference at the couple’s Stamford home on Monday.

“For them to be called nig—-, it must be so hurtful that they can easily just erase the board and suffer within, quietly by themselves, and act like nothing happened,” said Darnell Crosland, legal counsel for NAACP’s state chapter. “And in fact, that’s what the Stamford police asked them to do. They were requested to take the sign down…and to just act normal, like nothing happened.”

Crosland, like the targeted couple, called on authorities to simply do their jobs:

“What we want you to do is to go canvass this neighborhood and find out who did this. What we want you to do is to put a patrol car out here and act like you give a damn, and make sure these people are protected.”

The president of Stamford NAACP, Jack Bryant, called the incident a “scathing insult” that could have “a lasting effect not only on the family residing in that house, but also on Stamford as a community.”

As for the couple’s ongoing, daily fine, the city’s director of public safety, Ted Jankowski, defended it in an emailed statement:

“The neighbors were very upset when the incident occurred and truly felt for the couple. However, the residents who have condemned the racial incident are upset and are complaining about continuing to see the racial slur and how it is disturbing the peace in the quiet neighborhood.”

This article first appeared on TheAntiMedia.org and was authored by James Holbrooks

The post Interracial Couple Repeatedly Victimized by Racist Graffiti Charged $100 per Day by City Until Removal appeared first on We Are Change.

NASA has designed a Disneyland-esque travel poster to the new system.

Astronomers have confirmed that an “ultra cool dwarf” star 40 light-years away from Earth called Trappist-1, although not particularly active, has seven Earth-sized planets revolving around it.

Although all seven could have liquid water on the surface, only three are considered in the “habitable zone” where life is possible.

The planets were detected using Nasa’s Spitzer Space Telescope and several ground-based observatories are described in the journal Nature.

Lead author Michaël Gillon, from Belgium’s University of Liège, said: “The planets are all close to each other and very close to the star, which is very reminiscent of the moons around Jupiter.”

“Still, the star is so small and cold that the seven planets are temperate, which means that they could have some liquid water – and maybe life, by extension – on the surface.” (source)

Because of its close proximity to Earth, the planets will be much easier for astronomers to study than some of the other systems out there. The next phase of research will focus on the atmospheres found on each planet as a clue toward whether or not they could be sustaining “biological activity”.

This article first appeared on TheDailySheeple.com and was authored by The Daily Sheeple

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Article via ZeroHedge

When Philadelphia became the first US city to pass a soda tax last summer, city officials were eagerly looking forward to the surplus-tax funded windfall to plug gaping budget deficits (and, since this is Philadelphia, the occasional embezzlement scheme). Then, one month ago, after the tax went into effect on January 1st we showed the tax applied in practice: a receipt for a 10 pack of flavored water carried a 51% beverage tax. And since  PA has a sales tax of 6% and Philly already charges another 2%, the total sales tax was 8%. In other words, a purchase which until last year came to $6.47 had overnight become $9.75.

What happened next? Precisely what most expected would happen: full blown sticker shock, and a collapse in purchases.

According to Philly.com reports, two months into the city’s sweetened-beverage tax, supermarkets and distributors are reporting a 30% to 50% drop in beverage sales and – adding insult to injury – are now planning for layoffs.

One of the city’s largest distributors told the Philadelphia website it would cut 20% of its workforce in March, and an owner of six ShopRite stores in Philadelphia says he expects to shed 300 workers this spring. “People are seeing sales decline larger than anything they’ve seen up to this point in the city,” said Alex Baloga, vice president of external relations at the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association.

Since all of this is taking place as previewed in a recent post: “The ‘Soda Police’ Just Learned A Valuable Lesson About Taxes“, we doubt it would come as a surprise to anyone, although we are confident that Philadelphia city workers will be amazed by these unexpected developments.

Sure enough, in response instead of admitting the tax was a bad decision, the city lashed out by launching the latest “fake news” campaign, when it questioned the legitimacy of the early figures and predicted that customers responding to the initial sticker shock by shopping outside the city would return. “We have no way of knowing if their sales figures and predicted job losses are anything more than fear-mongering to prevent this from happening in other cities,” said city spokesman Mike Dunn.

Mayor Kenney harshly rebuked reports of coming layoffs late Tuesday night.

“I didn’t think it was possible for the soda industry to be any greedier,” Kenney said in an emailed statement. “…They are so committed to stopping this tax from spreading to other cities, that they are not only passing the tax they should be paying onto their customer, they are actually willing to threaten working men and women’s jobs rather than marginally reduce their seven figure bonuses.”

The 1.5-cent-per-ounce tax on sweetened and diet beverages is funding nearly 2,000 pre-K seats this year as well as several community schools, and the city hopes will bring in $92 million per year for the education programs and to in part fund renovated parks and recreation centers. To hit its annual target, the city needs to collect $7.6 million a month in tax revenue. The first collection was due Feb. 21 but collection information won’t be available until next month.  Early projections from the city’s quarterly manager’s report predict only $2.3 million will come through in the first collection. Dunn says that figure is expected to rise and the city still anticipates hitting its goal for the year.

The city predicted a 27% sales decline industry-wide as a result of the tax but early returns from some beverage sellers show far higher losses, fueling a resurgence of the anti-soda tax coalition that fought vigorously against the tax last summer.

Bob Brockway, chief operating officer of Canada Dry Delaware Valley, which distributes about 20 percent of the city’s soft drinks, said sales were down 45 percent in Philadelphia. The company will lay off 20 percent of its workforce the first week in March. The distributor is a subsidiary of Honickman Affiliates, owned by Harold Honickman, who helped lead the opposition to the tax last summer. The 35 jobs on the line include managers, sales people, and drivers, Brockway said. Sales are up about 20 percent in the suburbs, but that hasn’t helped the business break even, he said.

On the whole, the company’s sales are down about 30 percent, Brockway said: “We don’t anticipate people coming back.”

The situation is worse at other outlets.

Jeff Brown, CEO of Brown’s Super Stores, which manages six ShopRite stores in the city, said beverage sales were down 50 percent from Jan. 1 to Feb. 17 compared with the same period in 2016.

Again, that was to be expected, but what was more troubling is a 15% dip in overall sales at city stores, meaning that instead of merely reallocating funds, the tax has resulted in a net loss of purchasing power. “People didn’t change what they drink,” Brown said. “They changed where they’re buying it.” And the biggest loser: the city of Philadelphia.

But it gets even worse: since January, Brown said, he has had to cut 6,000 employee hours, he said. He said he suspects he will lose about 300 people, which amounts to one-fifth of his total workforce voluntarily and through layoffs in coming months. To keep customers, Brown has ordered more tea and lemonade powders, which are tax-exempt. He’s stocking shelves with lower-quantity sugary drinks, which are easier to sell than the two-liter bottles or 12-packs.

Day’s Beverages, an independent soft-drink distributor, has seen a steep decline in Philadelphia offset by a 50 percent boost in Camden, Wilmington, and Bensalem, owner David Day said. Day also distributes to 18 other states, but Philadelphia makes up 30 percent of his market. His carry-out business has ballooned since the tax, he said.

Day is a registered distributor with the city and required to remit a monthly payment on any taxed beverages that go on to be sold in Philadelphia. He sent payment in last week for deliveries he made throughout Philadelphia. But Day doesn’t tax people coming in to buy soda directly from his warehouse.

“We’re one block out of Philadelphia, in Delaware County, and you can’t imagine how many stores are coming to our warehouse and picking up our soda. I don’t care what they do — they’re coming here as a cash-and-carry. Our doors are open to everyone,” he said. “We don’t police where it’s going.”

Another loser: labor unions. Danny Grace, head of the Teamsters union, representing many of the drivers, said members have seen pay cut by as much as 70 percent because they’re moving fewer products. “Many of them have quit as a result,” Grace said. He did not provide specific figures.

Not surprisingly, legal challenges against the soda tax persist. The Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association, in conjunction with movie theaters, restaurants, and supermarkets, is mounting a new “Ax the Bev Tax” campaign this week. Participating businesses will hang up signs encouraging people to call their elected representatives. Some legislators in Harrisburg weighed in this month, with an amicus brief calling on the court to overturn the tax. Within City Hall, legislators are taking a wait-and-see approach. Some Council members have encouraged patience.

“Initially people are upset and drive over the city line, but then they do the math and realize the cost of gas or the pure inconvenience doesn’t make it worth it,” Dunn said.

J. Del Conner is one of the 210 distributors registered with the city. He owns Dr. Physick soda, a tiny beverage-maker that sells about 500 cases a year. The soda is named after Conner’s great-great-great-grandfather, a Philadelphia pharmacist who introduced carbonated water into fruit syrup as a way to help relieve gastric disorders.

Conner usually sells about 10 cases a month in winter but didn’t send any money to the city this month.

“So far in January and February we’ve had no sales,” he said. “Zero.”

This article first appeared on ZeroHedge.com and was authored by Tyler Durden

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Article Via: The Free Thought Project

Berlin, Germany – The most prominent bank in Germany is at risk of imminent collapse, with potentially profound effects for the EU, the United States and the rest of the world. The prospect of a cataclysmic global banking collapse of this nature has not been seen since the implosion of Lehman Brothers in 2008, and subsequent fallout in the global banking world.

But these events haven’t taken place in a vacuum, as earlier this year savvy international investor Lord Jacob Rothschild, during a semi-annual address to RIT Capital Partners, announced that they are reducing stock market and currency exposure and increasing their gold holdings, warning that the world is now in “uncharted waters” and the consequences are “impossible” to predict.

Rothschild stated:

“The six months under review have seen central bankers continuing what is surely the greatest experiment in monetary policy in the history of the world.

We are therefore in uncharted waters and it is impossible to predict the unintended consequences of very low interest rates, with some 30% of global government debt at negative yields, combined with quantitative easing on a massive scale.”

The collapse of Deutsche Bank would most likely begin a cascade of Western banking institutions falling like dominos (which could include Barclays in London and CitiGroup in the U.S.). According to the same expert who valued Lehman’s worth at it’s collapse, Deutsche Bank’s current value of $1 trillion dollars is significantly more than Lehman Brothers’ valuation during their collapse in 2008.

The contagion from a collapse of this magnitude could potentially trigger a systemic banking collapse the likes of which the world has never seen. The EU would almost certainly disintegrate upon a collapse of this magnitude, as Deutsche Bank is the largest bank in Germany — which is essentially the financial heart and soul of the EU.

When Jacob Rothschild says that he is buying gold because the central banks are out of control, you begin to understand the scope and magnitude of what is transpiring, as his family has been in de facto control of the world’s central banks for centuries.

Deutsche Bank shares have fallen sharply on the news that German Chancellor Angela Merkel won’t bail out the struggling bank, with shares falling by as much as six percent in early week trading, turning in their worst performance since 1992. Since just January, the bank’s shares have lost over 52 percent of their value.

Merkel has also refused to provide state financial assistance to Deutsche Bank in its legal battle with the U.S. Department of Justice. The chancellor made her position clear during talks with Deutsche CEO John Cryan, according to Focus magazine. The German-based lender may be fined up to $14 billion over its mortgage-backed securities business before the 2008 global crisis.

The German Chancellor also noted that Deutsche Bank will not be getting a bailout from the European Central Bank – the lender of last resort for European banks.

Revealing the truly dangerous threat the German megabank poses to the international banking system, a report from the International Monetary Fund in June implied that Deutsche Bank was a systemic risk to the global financial system.

Of all the world’s big banks, the I.M.F. said,

“Deutsche Bank appears to be the most important net contributor to systemic risks.”

Many fear that in the wake of Merkel’s refusal to bail out Deutsche Bank, Germany may now be considering a bail-in instead?

According to Investopedia:

A bail-in is rescuing a financial institution on the brink of failure by making its creditors and depositors take a loss on their holdings. A bail-in is the opposite of a bail-out, which involves the rescue of a financial institution by external parties, typically governments using taxpayers money. Typically, bail-outs have been far more common than bail-ins, but in recent years after massive bail-outs some governments now require the investors and depositors in the bank to take a loss before taxpayers.

Essentially, this entails the bank stealing deposited funds, with virtually no recourse for those individuals who have their savings stolen.

It’s not at all beyond the realm of possibility, as it has happened before in very recent history. To keep the bank solvent, the Bank of Cyprus took almost 40 percent of depositor’s funds – leaving customers with essentially nothing they could do about having their money stolen. Assets were frozen and ATM machines were not refilled.

Perhaps this explains why in mid-August Germans were told by their government to stockpile 10 days worth of water, and five days worth of food in case of a “national emergency” hitting the country, with the Czech Republic following suit and making a similar announcement within days of the German warning.

Deutsche Bank’s unbelievably risky portfolio and its exposure to the derivative markets, which stands at over $40 trillion dollars, would undoubtedly cause exponentially more damage than the Lehman Brothers collapse did back in 2008, which precipitated the Great Recession of 2008.

This risk of failure has now gotten so threatening that a number of funds that clear derivatives trades with Deutsche Bank AG have withdrawn excess cash and positions held at the lender, according to Bloomberg.

While the vast majority of the bank’s more than 200 derivatives-clearing clients have made no changes, the hedge funds run on cash highlights serious concern. The paranoia of an imminent collapse spread to the US on Thursday, as 10 hedge funds that are Deutsche Bank clients have decided to withdraw cash and listed derivatives positions from the bank, according to a Bloomberg News report.

Millennium Partners, Capula Investment Management and Rokos Capital Management are among about 10 hedge funds that have cut their exposure, said a person familiar with the situation who declined to be identified talking about confidential client matters.

The hedge funds use Deutsche Bank to clear their listed derivatives transactions because they are not members of clearinghouses. Millennium, Capula and Rokos declined to comment when contacted by phone or e-mail.

Highlighting the contagion banking effect, news that some hedge funds were pulling positions and excess collateral from Deutsche Bank caused shares of U.S. banks to quickly reverse early gains, according to Bloomberg.

Just as Lehman Brothers disingenuously claimed they were financially solvent as the upcoming financial storm brewed in 2008, only to file for bankruptcy, Deutsche Bank has attempted to allay investor concerns by claiming that their financial fundamentals are sound. One would be wise to be very suspicious of any statements made by a failing banking institution.

When the government warnings start, you can be assured that it’s already too late, as the availability of supplies in the case of emergency would be severely constrained after a warning due to the large number of people attempting to procure an extremely limited amount of supplies.

Will Germany become the powder keg that implodes the global economy? Only time will tell, but all signs point to a very similar situation to 2008 — but without central banks having much recourse, as negative interest rates and quantitative easing were some of the last arrows in the quiver being used to prop up the global economy.

What is certain is that an ounce of prevention, ahead of any potential collapse, is the most viable solution for those looking to safeguard themselves and their families. The key is to stock up on food, water and other necessities in advance of the actual crisis fully manifesting. A minimal amount of effort put into preparing early for the side effects of a major economic disaster could be the difference between surviving the crisis, or not, for your family.

Please share this extremely important information to help others be prepared for this potentially dangerous crisis, the severity of which is largely being covered up by mainstream media!

This article first appeared on TheFreeThoughtProject.com and was authored by Jay Syrmopoulos

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