- Quantifying The Economic Effect Of Royal Babies
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Harry and Meghan, welcomed their first child to the world this week.
While you may have little to no interest in this, there are at least some substantial benefits to the UK economy when a royal baby is born.
Prince George’s birth, for example, is estimated to have brought in £240 million from spending related to celebrations, souvenirs and books etc. Take a look at our infogaphic to learn more about the economic effect of royal babies.
This infographic was researched and designed by Statista Content and Information Design.
You will find more infographics at Statista
- Ideals That Won 'Victory' Are Still The Greatest Of Ideals
As Russians celebrate Victory Day, George Galloway argues for a return to the spirit that won the war.
On May 9, 1945, Hitler’s fascism was finally crushed amongst the rubble of Berlin and the “thousand-year Reich” came to a mercifully premature end.
The death blows were struck, overwhelmingly by the Red Army and the ghosts of 27 million Soviet citizens who it carried on their shoulders. In the words of Winston Churchill, the Red Army “tore the guts out of the Wehrmacht,” and he was indeed unstinting in his praise of the sacrifices made by the Soviet peoples in the victory we shall celebrate this week.
It should be acknowledged too that, but for Mr Churchill, the British ruling class would have surrendered to Hitler and the city of London queued up to sell him financial services. Elements of the British royal family itself would have thrown open the gates of Buckingham Palace.
The same ruling class which had appeased Hitler at every turn wished nothing more than that he would turn his monstrous war machine east instead of west, and destroy the USSR. The ruling class which refused Soviet efforts to form an anti-Nazi pact to stop fascism in its tracks before it got going. And which delayed the opening of the second front in the west until they could see the way the wind was blowing, and became more worried about how far the Red Army could go in their ultimately victorious onslaught against the beast of Hitlerism.
No Russian family, indeed no Soviet family, did not lose at least one relative in the inferno. But victory was won and the Soviet peoples’ army wrote their names in the stars and achieved immortality.
This week, the secretary of state of the United States, one part of the great victorious alliance, canceled a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He did so because he had failed in advance to bully and browbeat her into acquiescence over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which will bind together the Russian and German peoples in a joint and mutually beneficial economic relationship and help guarantee that no such slaughter can ever again occur between them. While Pompeo is no Ribbentrop and Trump is no Hitler, the politics of diktat did not die in the bunker in Berlin in 1945.
The endless demands of the US government for economic warfare against Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Uncle Tom Cobley and all are leading the great people of the US into ever-deeper division with their allies. Angela Merkel, whose own personal telephone was tapped by the oozingly liberal Barack Obama and who has been denied access to her own illicitly gathered NSA file, has clearly reached the end of her tether with Donald Trump.
The countries of the European Union which followed President Trump into the now patently obviously ludicrous schoolboy politics of diplomatic recognition of the fraudster Juan Guaido are both embarrassed and angry as his US-inspired coup d’etat has collapsed like a spoiled souffle.
His trade war with China, conducted with the now-usual bluff and bluster threats and hints and sanctions, is leading to a poisoning of the international investment climate.
Dispatching gunboats to the Persian Gulf, which if it was closed by hostilities would bring Western economies to their knees, is adding to a dystopian horror in the chanceries of Europe which fear that if the lights go out across Europe, they may not be lit again in our lifetime. The world is now a very dangerous place.
Only the abandonment of diktat, a return to the negotiating table, can bring equilibrium to the world situation. As Mr Churchill said: “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.”
Donald Trump’s appearance at the Victory Parade this week may alas be out of the question.
However, he should watch it on TV, he likes TV, and ponder this. The allied defeat of Hitlerism was the greatest achievement of human history. The sundering of the forces which won the victory, the calumnizing of the leading force which secured the victory, the frantic efforts to achieve hegemony are futile, doomed as utterly as the idea of a “thousand-year Reich.” The world has turned.
- D Is For A Dictatorship Disguised As A Democracy
Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; a culture-death is a clear possibility.”
– Professor Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Discourse in the Age of Show Business
What characterizes American government today is not so much dysfunctional politics as it is ruthlessly contrived governance carried out behind the entertaining, distracting and disingenuous curtain of political theater. And what political theater it is, diabolically Shakespearean at times, full of sound and fury, yet in the end, signifying nothing.
Played out on the national stage and eagerly broadcast to a captive audience by media sponsors, this farcical exercise in political theater can, at times, seem riveting, life-changing and suspenseful, even for those who know better.
Week after week, the script changes (Donald Trump’s Tweets, Congress’ hearings on Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, the military’s endless war drums, the ever-widening field of candidates for the 2020 presidential race, etc.) with each new script following on the heels of the last, never any let-up, never any relief from the constant melodrama.
The players come and go, the protagonists and antagonists trade places, and the audience members are quick to forget past mistakes and move on to the next spectacle.
All the while, a different kind of drama is unfolding in the dark backstage, hidden from view by the heavy curtain, the elaborate stage sets, colored lights and parading actors.
Such that it is, the realm of political theater with all of its drama, vitriol and scripted theatrics is what passes for “transparent” government today, with elected officials, entrusted to act in the best interests of their constituents, routinely performing for their audiences and playing up to the cameras, while doing very little to move the country forward.
Yet behind the footlights, those who really run the show are putting into place policies which erode our freedoms and undermine our attempts at contributing to the workings of our government, leaving us none the wiser and bereft of any opportunity to voice our discontent or engage in any kind of discourse until it’s too late.
It’s the oldest con game in the books, the magician’s sleight of hand that keeps you focused on the shell game in front of you while your wallet is being picked clean by ruffians in your midst.
Indeed, while mainstream America has been fixated on the drama-filled reality show being televised from the White House, the American Police State has moved steadily forward.
Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, roving VIPR raids and the like—all of which have been sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—our constitutional freedoms have been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded.
Our losses are mounting with every passing day.
Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become casualties in the government’s war on the American people.
The American people have been treated like enemy combatants, to be spied on, tracked, scanned, frisked, searched, subjected to all manner of intrusions, intimidated, invaded, raided, manhandled, censored, silenced, shot at, locked up, and denied due process.
None of these dangers have dissipated.
They have merely disappeared from our televised news streams.
The new boss has proven to be the same as the old boss, and the American people, the permanent underclass in America, has allowed itself to be so distracted and divided that they have failed to notice the building blocks of tyranny being laid down right under their noses by the architects of the Deep State.
Frankly, it really doesn’t matter what you call the old/new boss—the Deep State, the Controllers, the masterminds, the shadow government, the police state, the surveillance state, the military industrial complex—so long as you understand that no matter who occupies the White House, it is a profit-driven, an unelected bureaucracy that is actually calling the shots.
In the interest of liberty and truth, here’s an A-to-Z primer to spell out the grim realities of life in the American Police State that no one is talking about anymore.
A is for the AMERICAN POLICE STATE. A police state “is characterized by bureaucracy, secrecy, perpetual wars, a nation of suspects, militarization, surveillance, widespread police presence, and a citizenry with little recourse against police actions.”
B is for our battered BILL OF RIGHTS. In the cop culture that is America today, where you can be kicked, punched, tasered, shot, intimidated, harassed, stripped, searched, brutalized, terrorized, wrongfully arrested, and even killed by a police officer, and that officer is rarely held accountable for violating your rights, the Bill of Rights doesn’t amount to much.
C is for CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURE. This governmental scheme to deprive Americans of their liberties—namely, the right to property—is being carried out under the guise of civil asset forfeiture, a government practice wherein government agents (usually the police) seize private property they “suspect” may be connected to criminal activity. Then, whether or not any crime is actually proven to have taken place, the government keeps the citizen’s property.
D is for DRONES. It is estimated that at least 30,000 drones will be airborne in American airspace by 2020, part of an $80 billion industry. Although some drones will be used for benevolent purposes, many will also be equipped with lasers, tasers and scanning devices, among other weapons—all aimed at “we the people.”
E is for ELECTRONIC CONCENTRATION CAMP. In the electronic concentration camp, as I have dubbed the surveillance state, all aspects of a person’s life are policed by government agents and all citizens are suspects, their activities monitored and regulated, their movements tracked, their communications spied upon, and their lives, liberties and pursuit of happiness dependent on the government’s say-so.
F is for FASCISM. A study conducted by Princeton and Northwestern University concluded that the U.S. government does not represent the majority of American citizens. Instead, the study found that the government is ruled by the rich and powerful, or the so-called “economic elite.” Moreover, the researchers concluded that policies enacted by this governmental elite nearly always favor special interests and lobbying groups. In other words, we are being ruled by an oligarchy disguised as a democracy, and arguably on our way towards fascism—a form of government where private corporate interests rule, money calls the shots, and the people are seen as mere economic units.
G is for GRENADE LAUNCHERS and GLOBAL POLICE. The federal government has distributed more than $18 billion worth of battlefield-appropriate military weapons, vehicles and equipment such as drones, tanks, and grenade launchers to domestic police departments across the country. As a result, most small-town police forces now have enough firepower to render any citizen resistance futile. Now take those small-town police forces, train them to look and act like the military, and then enlist them to be part of the United Nations’ Strong Cities Network program, and you not only have a standing army that operates beyond the reach of the Constitution but one that is part of a global police force.
H is for HOLLOW-POINT BULLETS. The government’s efforts to militarize and weaponize its agencies and employees is reaching epic proportions, with federal agencies as varied as the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration stockpiling millions of lethal hollow-point bullets, which violate international law. Ironically, while the government continues to push for stricter gun laws for the general populace, the U.S. military’s arsenal of weapons makes the average American’s handgun look like a Tinker Toy.
I is for the INTERNET OF THINGS, in which internet-connected “things” will monitor your home, your health and your habits in order to keep your pantry stocked, your utilities regulated and your life under control and relatively worry-free. The key word here, however, is control. This “connected” industry propels us closer to a future where police agencies apprehend virtually anyone if the government “thinks” they may commit a crime, driverless cars populate the highways, and a person’s biometrics are constantly scanned and used to track their movements, target them for advertising, and keep them under perpetual surveillance.
J is for JAILING FOR PROFIT. Having outsourced their inmate population to private prisons run by private corporations, this profit-driven form of mass punishment has given rise to a $70 billion private prison industry that relies on the complicity of state governments to keep their privately run prisons full by jailing large numbers of Americans for inane crimes.
K is for KENTUCKY V. KING. In an 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court ruled that police officers can break into homes, without a warrant, even if it’s the wrong home as long as they think they have a reason to do so. Despite the fact that the police in question ended up pursuing the wrong suspect, invaded the wrong apartment and violated just about every tenet that stands between us and a police state, the Court sanctioned the warrantless raid, leaving Americans with little real protection in the face of all manner of abuses by law enforcement officials.
L is for LICENSE PLATE READERS, which enable law enforcement and private agencies to track the whereabouts of vehicles, and their occupants, all across the country. This data collected on tens of thousands of innocent people is also being shared between police agencies, as well as with fusion centers and private companies. This puts Big Brother in the driver’s seat.
M is for MAIN CORE. Since the 1980s, the U.S. government has acquired and maintained, without warrant or court order, a database of names and information on Americans considered to be threats to the nation. As Salon reports, this database, reportedly dubbed “Main Core,” is to be used by the Army and FEMA in times of national emergency or under martial law to locate and round up Americans seen as threats to national security. As of 2008, there were some 8 million Americans in the Main Core database.
N is for NO-KNOCK RAIDS. Owing to the militarization of the nation’s police forces, SWAT teams are now increasingly being deployed for routine police matters. In fact, more than 80,000 of these paramilitary raids are carried out every year. That translates to more than 200 SWAT team raids every day in which police crash through doors, damage private property, terrorize adults and children alike, kill family pets, assault or shoot anyone that is perceived as threatening—and all in the pursuit of someone merely suspected of a crime, usually possession of some small amount of drugs.
O is for OVERCRIMINALIZATION and OVERREGULATION. Thanks to an overabundance of 4500-plus federal crimes and 400,000 plus rules and regulations, it’s estimated that the average American actually commits three felonies a day without knowing it. As a result of this overcriminalization, we’re seeing an uptick in Americans being arrested and jailed for such absurd “violations” as letting their kids play at a park unsupervised, collecting rainwater and snow runoff on their own property, growing vegetables in their yard, and holding Bible studies in their living room.
P is for PATHOCRACY and PRECRIME. When our own government treats us as things to be manipulated, maneuvered, mined for data, manhandled by police, mistreated, and then jailed in profit-driven private prisons if we dare step out of line, we are no longer operating under a constitutional republic. Instead, what we are experiencing is a pathocracy: tyranny at the hands of a psychopathic government, which “operates against the interests of its own people except for favoring certain groups.” Couple that with the government’s burgeoning precrime programs, which will use fusion centers, data collection agencies, behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, biometrics, and behavioral epigenetics in order to identify and deter so-called potential “extremists,” dissidents or rabble-rousers. Bear in mind that anyone seen as opposing the government—whether they’re Left, Right or somewhere in between—is now viewed as an extremist.
Q is for QUALIFIED IMMUNITY. Qualified immunity allows officers to walk away without paying a dime for their wrongdoing. Conveniently, those deciding whether a police officer should be immune from having to personally pay for misbehavior on the job all belong to the same system, all cronies with a vested interest in protecting the police and their infamous code of silence: city and county attorneys, police commissioners, city councils and judges.
R is for ROADSIDE STRIP SEARCHES and BLOOD DRAWS. The courts have increasingly erred on the side of giving government officials—especially the police—vast discretion in carrying out strip searches, blood draws and even anal probes for a broad range of violations, no matter how minor the offense. In the past, strip searches were resorted to only in exceptional circumstances where police were confident that a serious crime was in progress. In recent years, however, strip searches have become routine operating procedures in which everyone is rendered a suspect and, as such, is subjected to treatment once reserved for only the most serious of criminals.
S is for the SURVEILLANCE STATE. On any given day, the average American going about his daily business will be monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears. A byproduct of this new age in which we live, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers that monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere.
T is for TASERS. Nonlethal weapons such as tasers, stun guns, rubber pellets and the like have been used by police as weapons of compliance more often and with less restraint—even against women and children—and in some instances, even causing death. These “nonlethal” weapons also enable police to aggress with the push of a button, making the potential for overblown confrontations over minor incidents that much more likely. A Taser Shockwave, for instance, can electrocute a crowd of people at the touch of a button.
U is for UNARMED CITIZENS SHOT BY POLICE. No longer is it unusual to hear about incidents in which police shoot unarmed individuals first and ask questions later, often attributed to a fear for their safety. Yet the fatality rate of on-duty patrol officers is reportedly far lower than many other professions, including construction, logging, fishing, truck driving, and even trash collection.
V is for VIPR SQUADS. So-called “soft target” security inspections, carried out by roving VIPR task forces, comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams, are taking place whenever and wherever the government deems appropriate, at random times and places, and without needing the justification of a particular threat.
W is for WHOLE-BODY SCANNERS. Using either x-ray radiation or radio waves, scanning devices and government mobile units are being used not only to “see” through your clothes but to spy on you within the privacy of your home. While these mobile scanners are being sold to the American public as necessary security and safety measures, we can ill afford to forget that such systems are rife with the potential for abuse, not only by government bureaucrats but by the technicians employed to operate them.
X is for X-KEYSCORE, one of the many spying programs carried out by the National Security Agency that targets every person in the United States who uses a computer or phone. This top-secret program “allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals.”
Y is for YOU-NESS. Using your face, mannerisms, social media and “you-ness” against you, you can now be tracked based on what you buy, where you go, what you do in public, and how you do what you do. Facial recognition software promises to create a society in which every individual who steps out into public is tracked and recorded as they go about their daily business. The goal is for government agents to be able to scan a crowd of people and instantaneously identify all of the individuals present. Facial recognition programs are being rolled out in states all across the country.
Z is for ZERO TOLERANCE. We have moved into a new paradigm in which young people are increasingly viewed as suspects and treated as criminals by school officials and law enforcement alike, often for engaging in little more than childish behavior. In some jurisdictions, students have also been penalized under school zero tolerance policies for such inane “crimes” as carrying cough drops, wearing black lipstick, bringing nail clippers to school, using Listerine or Scope, and carrying fold-out combs that resemble switchblades. The lesson being taught to our youngest—and most impressionable—citizens is this: in the American police state, you’re either a prisoner (shackled, controlled, monitored, ordered about, limited in what you can do and say, your life not your own) or a prison bureaucrat (politician, police officer, judge, jailer, spy, profiteer, etc.).
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the reality we must come to terms with is that in the post-9/11 America we live in today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.
We have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age.
You can call it the age of authoritarianism. Or fascism. Or oligarchy. Or the American police state.
Whatever label you want to put on it, the end result is the same: tyranny.
- Raytheon Shoots Down Multiple Drones With Directed Laser Weapon
Raytheon Company has successfully shot down multiple drones using its advanced high powered microwave (HPM) and mobile high energy laser (HEL) weapon systems, stated the company press release Tuesday.
The directed-energy weapon system was paired with Raytheon’s Multi-spectral Targeting System, using sensors that directed microwaves and lasers to blast enemy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) out of the sky during a field training exercise. Mounted on a Polaris MRZR 4 all-terrain vehicle, the system was extremely portable and could traverse almost any terrain.
“Countering the drone threat requires diverse solutions,” said Stefan Baur, Raytheon Electronic Warfare Systems vice president. “HEL and HPM give frontline operators options for protecting critical infrastructure, convoys and personnel.”
During the exercise, Raytheon’s targeting system directed HPM’s microwave energy at incoming enemy UAVs to disorient its guidance system. The system then fired the HEL which effectively blasted the drones out the sky. With a diesel power supply, the tracking system, HPM, and HEL can operate for several hours.
“After decades of research and investment, we believe these advanced directed energy applications will soon be ready for the battlefield to help protect people, assets and infrastructure,” said Dr. Thomas Bussing, Raytheon Advanced Missile Systems vice president.
Raytheon’s HEL and HPM were tested at an undisclosed location. The exercise expanded on previously directed energy weapon demonstrations such as the Army’s directed energy exercise in 2017.
Military officials have warned about the proliferation of small to medium-sized armed drones are accelerating at an alarming rate. Small drones offer new levels of stealth and utility for military and terror organization on the modern battlefield. These drones can be purchased on the internet, are relatively inexpensive to build, and the operator can learn to fly it in minutes.
Take, for example, a small drone packed with explosives flown by Yemen’s Houthi rebels hit a military parade at the Al Anad Air Base outside Aden, a port city in eastern Yemen, early this year, wounding a dozen troops from a Saudi-led coalition. The small drone was able to penetrate the base’s missile defense system and exploded over military leaders and troops. The use of small drones on the modern battlefield has revolutionized warfare in the 21st century, made conventional forces vulnerable.
A drone attack on Yemen’s largest air base has killed several people and left a dozen more injured. pic.twitter.com/qcvu7I5rG4
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) January 10, 2019
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Last week, the Air Force said it was nearing operational use of its Tactical High-power Microwave Operational Responder (THOR), a high-powered microwave energy weapon that can shield a base from drone swarm attacks.
Inexpensive drone technology has given terror organizations around the world new operational capabilities that can conduct surveillance and carry munitions for a direct-attack role. A trend that has forced the Pentagon to spend hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, on new technology to combat this ever so expanding threat.
- Chaos Is The Order Of The Day
Submitted by J. Theodore Schatt,
Democrats have voted to hold Attorney General Barr in contempt for failing to hand over documents that he is precluded by law from disclosing. Democrats on Capitol Hill are complaining of unprecedented White House obstruction creating a constitutional crisis. President Trump is described by these same individuals as a: “racist”; “traitor”; “authoritative dictator” and worse. If you, like me, have wondered why the tradition of civil public discourse evaporated, I think I have the answer.
The Democrats sole intention over the next year and a half is to create such a chaotic national political landscape that the 2020 electoral pitch to the American people will be that the only way to end the chaos is to vote President Trump out of office.
It would appear that Democrats have made the cold and calculated decision that they cannot effectively engage the President on policy. Understandably so. How do you argue against an economic policy that results in higher wages and the lowest unemployment numbers in a half decade after previously telling the public to get used to the new normal? How do you engage in a discussion of health care policy when the last plan you sold to the American public was based upon lower cost and an ability to keep both your plan and your doctor and all three turned out to be false? How do you effectively engage the President on immigration when the President has been on the issue for three and a half years while you have insisted there is not a problem? It would require an admission that doing nothing was in error and a capitulation that most of what Trump has wanted is in fact necessary.
The calculation appears to be that if the political scene becomes chaotic enough, a majority of likely voters will tune it all out and come to the conclusion that the only way to end the chaos is to change Presidents in much the same way that parents of screaming infants tend to give the infant what it wants. That impulse will be fostered by the continuous mantra that Trump’s personality is poisonous to our national unity. “He’s the cause of divisiveness.” “He’s a racist.” “He’s an authoritative dictator.” The added bonus for Democrats will be that the criminal charges soon to come over the Obama Administration’s interference in the 2016 election will be explained away as simply “trumped” up political charges by an “authoritative dictator”.
There would appear to be two potential outcomes:
1. The American electorate sees through the smoke and punishes the Democrats at the ballot box for their conduct; or
2. The scheme works and Democrats get a pass on their complicity in the Obama Administration’s interference in the 2016 election.
The true beauty of democracy is in either scenario, we the American people get exactly what we deserve.
- Over 1% Of Guatemala, Honduras Have Crossed US Border In Last Eight Months: DHS
Over 1% of the populations of Guatemala and Honduras have entered the United States since September, according acting Homeland Security chief Kevin K. McAleenan, who added that the figure includes 3% of one Guatemalan county alone.
Speaking at the 49th Washington Conference of the Americas, McAleenan said “The current migration flows, especially of vulnerable families and children, from Central America through Mexico, to remote areas all along the U.S. border, represent both a security and humanitarian crisis,” adding “The situation is not sustainable.”
McAleenan predicted that April figures for illegal immigration will be even worse than March’s shocking figures – which saw over 100,000 migrants enter the country and led to the White House shaking up its immigration team, according to the Washington Examiner.
“In March, we had over 103,000 irregular arrivals of undocumented migrants — 90% crossing the U.S. border unlawfully and unsafely in the hands of human smugglers. We will see similar numbers in April,” said the DHS chief – adding that a there has been a shift in illegal immigrants coming from Central America, from predominantly Mexico-based to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
“These trends are deepening and accelerating. According to a recent USAID funded study conducted by Vanderbilt University’s Latin American Public Opinion Project in Guatemala earlier this year, 1 in 4 Guatemalans have an intention to migrate from Guatemala, with 85% of them expressing the United States as their preferred destination,” said McAleenan.
“That’s over 4 million Guatemalans who intend to migrate to the United States. Imagine if almost the entire population of the state of Western United States left the country. What kind of impact would that have on the economy, culture, and identity? What does that mean for future generations?”
He explained that the U.S. economy is a lure for illegal immigrants, and poor economic conditions at home are a “push.”
But, he added, Washington shares the blame. “The main cause of the current increases is the weakness in the U.S. immigration system, the vulnerabilities of our legal framework, which allow migrants, especially families and unaccompanied children, to stay in the U.S. for months or years, even though the vast majority will not ultimately receive legal status,” he said.
To the Central American insiders, he said that one solution will be to work better with those nations to deal with immigration and the economy. –Washington Examiner
“We want to work closely with all three countries’ customs administrations to help increase the efficiency of cross-border trade by reducing supply chain barriers and support exports and job creation. From an infrastructure, technology, automation, and legal perspective, DHS’s Customs and Border Protection is pursuing broad support for the region’s customs administrations to modernize practices in all of these areas,” he said, adding “DHS also intends to support the Department of State in highlighting those targeted aid programs where accountable partnerships have made an impact at addressing root causes of migration. The president has made clear that we need to operate from a shared understanding and invest only in efforts that produce results.”
- How The American Culture Of Convenience Is Killing Us
Authored by Daisy Luther via The Organic Prepper blog,
In the United States, we are lucky to have massive convenience at our fingertips. I was talking to one of the instructors for the urban survival course, who is from Sweden, on a car ride. He was blown away by some of the things I told him about the levels of convenience and comfort in the United States. Things I completely took for granted don’t even exist there. I thought some of you might be interested in hearing about some of the insights we discussed.
Before I left for the course, I was walking my dogs a mile or two every day with my dogs, but that was about it. I thought it was enough but I learned during the field exercises that it wasn’t even close to the physicality required during an SHTF situation. But I digress. Let’s get back to convenience.
A caveat before people respond indignantly and tell me about all the inconvenience with which they deal every day: this is an opinion piece. Obviously many people in America still work out hard and have manual jobs. But when two-thirds of American adults and 30% of American children are overweight or obese, you have to see that you are not in the majority.
And it’s the majority here that I’m discussing. Between a combination of low-quality food and extremely sedentary lifestyles, the majority are killing themselves with convenience.
The American Culture of Convenience
The first thing that struck me when I landed in the Balkans was how different their lifestyle is from ours in the United States. But the longer I’ve been here, the more obvious it has become.
In the United States, depending on where you live, everything is dropped in your lap.
Food can be quickly acquired by shouting your order into a microphone and driving around a building, all without you having to leave your car. And if you live in a larger town or city, with the advent of services like GrubHub and DoorDash, the food delivered to your home is no longer the domain of pizza chains. You can have your choice of practically any restaurant in town brought right to your door within 45 minutes.
But it isn’t just about food. Instacart offers pick-up services from a wide variety of stores, including places like chain grocers, Wal-Mart, and Target. All you have to do is drive up, let them know by phone that you’ve arrived, and pop your trunk. Poof. Your shopping is done. In some cities, you can even use services like Instacart to have these things brought to your door.
Amazon has brought us practically anything else we could want with two-day shipping, regardless of where you live in the country. Gone are the days of scouring half a dozen stores to locate the whatchamacallit you needed. A quick search on Amazon and One-Click ordering and it’s yours within 48 hours and you never moved off your comfy chair.
If you need to go somewhere you don’t even have to drive yourself or take public transit. Uber or Lyft will happily send somebody to pick you up and drive you anywhere you need to go for a reasonable price, and you can watch the approach of your driver from the convenience of your phone.
Entire billion dollar industries are evolving to make our lives more convenient and easy every single day. Imagine how stunned our hunter-gatherer ancestors would be to discover we don’t even have to leave the house to be clothed and fed in epic abundance.
We don’t walk much, either.
And speaking of drive-thrus and driving to the store to get your Instacart packages, we drive everywhere. Part of this is because of the way suburbia is developed. It’s rare to live in a neighborhood where you can walk to the market, the bakery, and the wine store. So instead of walking to get our goods, we drive there, dash in, and get back in our cars. Those in big cities probably walk far more than those in suburbia, and for those in the country, it depends if they actually have a place to walk and whether they’re taking care of a large property.
And if we’re not walking to run our errands, we’re not carrying stuff. We get as close as possible with our cars if heavy groceries need to be lugged in and we carry as little as we can if we’re heading somewhere. When you walk the dogs, you might take your phone and some poop bags but you’re generally not taking it as a training opportunity and strapping on a pack.
Then there are the stairs.
Even two-story buildings in the United States have elevators much of the time because everything, by law, has to be easily accessible to every person. (And no, I’m not saying that people in wheelchairs need to try to haul themselves up the stairs. I’m discussing a trend.) But it goes even further than that. Adding elevators to your home is a growing trend in both the United States and Canada. New home builders are including elevators in the original design of some homes.
On the other hand, in Europe, they don’t have elevators in many buildings with fewer than five floors. I walked up and down more stairs in the past month than I have in the past year at home combined, and I live in a three-story house.
And the list of conveniences that would blow the minds of people I met in the Balkans goes on.
It’s an agoraphobic’s paradise in the United States.
You can get all sorts of mobile services that come to your door – everything from hairstyling to dog grooming. Other people mow our lawns, clean our homes, service our vehicles, and take care of us in general. There are even people who hire others to walk their dogs. Some people definitely need help with physical tasks but able-bodied people should be able to do a little yard work, shouldn’t we? Especially if we’re preparing for some kind of apocalypse.
In many areas, things are perfectly level, the sidewalks are carefully maintained (because who wants to ask for trouble in our litigious society), and a slight incline is considered a “hill” that people avoid to make their dog walk a little easier.
You can get meal kits brought to your door with every single ingredient you need to make a gourmet meal, right down to the seasonings accurately doled out in little packages. You can have fresh fruits and vegetables dropped off at your door by your local CSA. You can get subscription services of all types with the delivery of things like cosmetics, fitness gear, food from exotic locales, wine, candy, home decor items, socks, and dog paraphernalia.
Looking at it from the perspective of the area where I’ve been spending time, it’s simply mind-boggling that all of these riches are brought to you at the click of a button.
And it’s killing us.
As I mentioned earlier in this article, the obesity rate in the United States is staggering. A lot of it is our food. Thanks to subsidization by the USDA, many of the foods that are cheap are highly processed with low-quality ingredients. The NY Times reports:
At a time when almost three-quarters of the country is overweight or obese, it comes as no surprise that junk foods are the largest source of calories in the American diet. Topping the list are grain-based desserts like cookies, doughnuts and granola bars. (Yes, granola bars are dessert.)
That’s according to data from the federal government, which says that breads, sugary drinks, pizza, pasta dishes and “dairy desserts” like ice cream are also among Americans’ top 10 sources of calories.
What do these foods have in common? They are largely the products of seven crops and farm foods — corn, soybeans, wheat, rice, sorghum, milk and meat — that are heavily subsidized by the federal government, ensuring that junk foods are cheap and plentiful, experts say.
Between 1995 and 2010, the government doled out $170 billion in agricultural subsidies to finance the production of these foods, the latter two in part through subsidies on feed grains. While many of these foods are not inherently unhealthy, only a small percentage of them are eaten as is. Most are used as feed for livestock, turned into biofuels or converted to cheap products and additives like corn sweeteners, industrial oils, processed meats and refined carbohydrates. (source)
And even when we try to clean up our diets, foods are genetically modified, produce is doused in pesticides, and it’s packaged in all sorts of hormone-disrupting material that leaches in when you heat it up.
But it’s not just the crappy food. A lot of folks in the United States just do not get off their butts. And – I hate to say it – but I’m talking to a lot of people in the survival and preparedness world. Sitting at a keyboard or phone typing all day while Netflix plays in the background is sedentary to a deadly degree. On average Americans sit for 8.2 hours per day and this does not include the average 7-ish hours a day we’re sleeping. And when we’re not sitting, it doesn’t mean we’re doing things that are good for us. We spend a great deal of time standing in line and driving in our cars. And the trend toward inactivity is only increasing.
Meanwhile, obesity contributes to many diseases such as:
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High blood glucose (sugar) or diabetes.
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High blood pressure (hypertension).
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High blood cholesterol and triglycerides (dyslipidemia, or high blood fats).
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Heart attacks due to coronary heart disease, heart failure, and stroke.
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Bone and joint problems, more weight puts pressure on the bones and joints. This can lead to osteoarthritis, a disease that causes joint pain and stiffness.
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Stopping breathing during sleep (sleep apnea). This can cause daytime fatigue or sleepiness, poor attention, and problems at work.
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Gallstones and liver problems.
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Some cancers.
The National Institute of Health is incredibly concerned about the future of overweight, sedentary Americans.
More recent evidence points to differential roles for body fat distribution patterns, in addition to excess overall adiposity, in elevating risk of many major chronic diseases. The large numbers of children entering adulthood overweight, together with increased weight gain in adulthood, portend an enormous burden in terms of human suffering, lost productivity, and health care expenditure in the coming decades. (source)
And – since it’s the purview of this website – imagine if the SHTF and you were too overweight and sedentary to go out and acquire the supplies you need to survive. Imagine what will happen when your medication runs out and you have a preventable disease brought on by your sedentary lifestyle. Imagine how your family will feel watching you suffer.
You need to add more movement to your life.
Unless you are among the 23% of Americans who meet the national exercise guidelines, you need to add more movement to your life. I suspect that there are a lot of people who believe they are disabled because getting started on a movement program is hard. It really does hurt, I know. But there’s a very good chance as you begin to move more it will become far easier. Don’t give in to it if your doctor says, “Oh, you’re disabled” and hands you a sticker for your car unless you really, truly are. If there’s even a glimmer of doubt in your mind, try to move just a few more steps each day. Instead of using the scooter to shop, push a cart to give yourself something to lean on. You aren’t training for a marathon – 10 extra steps a day will add up if you keep on pushing. But, MOVE.
The best way to increase movement is to decrease convenience. I don’t mean that you need to suddenly become a hunter-gatherer but you need to get off your duff. (To get started, check out this article or Bug Out Boot Camp and of course, always contact your doctor before beginning an exercise program. Blah, blah, blah.)
You need to carry heavy things instead of getting them delivered. You need to climb the stairs instead of taking the elevator or escalator. You need to actually go inside the store to do your shopping instead of sitting in your car, waiting for stuff to get loaded into your trunk. Park at the back of the parking lot, or better yet, at a store further away. Quit ordering from Amazon and buy things locally so you can walk around the store. Look for the hills and walk up and down them instead of avoiding them. If you want to eat restaurant food, go to the dad-gum restaurant. Find a place to walk to every day – maybe the post office, a coffee shop, or the dog park – and make it part of your routine.
It’s not unusual in other parts of the world to walk 8, 10, or even more miles, every single day. You don’t need to start there but maybe you should strive to get there. Once you’re in your groove, it should only take an hour or so to walk a mile. Using your feet as transportation is one of the healthiest things you can do.
Don’t be a casualty of the culture of convenience.
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- Mapping PFAS Crisis: New Data Reveals 19 Million Americans In 43 States Exposed To Toxic Chemicals
Tens of millions of Americans in 43 states may have been exposed to toxic fluorinated compounds known as PFAS in their drinking water, according to the non-profit Environmental Working Group (EWG) and the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute, at Northeastern University.
The report shows PFAS chemicals have exposed upwards of 19 million through contaminated groundwater. Researchers found 610 contaminated locations ranging from public water systems, military bases, military and civilian airports, industrial plants, dumps, and firefighter training sites.
PFAS chemicals were used in thousands of industrial applications and consumer products such as apparels, carpeting, food packaging, firefighting foams, and metal plating. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned that the toxic chemicals are present in the blood samples of the general population. Prior studies have shown the dangerous chemicals have been linked to weakened childhood immunity, thyroid disease, cancer, and other major health issues.
“The Environmental Protection Agency has utterly failed to address PFAS with the seriousness this crisis demands, leaving local communities and states to grapple with a complex problem rooted in the failure of the federal chemical regulatory system,” said Ken Cook, president of EWG. “EPA must move swiftly to set a truly health-protective legal limit for all PFAS chemicals, requiring utilities to clean up contaminated water supplies.”
The map below locates 610 places in 43 states that have dangerously high levels of PFAS chemicals in groundwater. Data from the US Department of Defense and public water utility reports were also included in the map. This additional data shows 117 military sites, including 77 military airports, which have high levels of PFAS firefighting foam.
“The updated map shows that PFAS contamination is truly a nationwide problem, impacting millions of Americans in hundreds of communities,” said Phil Brown, a professor of sociology and health sciences at Northeastern University and director of the Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute.
Michigan is the epicenter of PFAS contamination, has 192 sites on the map. California has 47 contamination sites, and New Jersey has 43.
“Leaders in many communities and states are doing great work to raise awareness about PFAS and push for cleanup, but this is a national crisis demanding national action. The EPA should act more quickly to evaluate all PFAS chemicals and restrict their use, and polluting industries should be held responsible,” said Brown.
There are currently no laws enforcing limits PFAS chemicals under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. The EPA said back in 2016, 70 parts per trillion of PFAS or below, is safe drinking water.
“This is a national crisis and it requires a national response,” EWG Vice President Bill Walker told the McClatchy Company news service.
Earlier this year, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced by 4Q19, the agency will “propose a regulatory determination” for PFAS, which would then allow amendments to be filed for establishing safe limits under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Associated Press reported.
Last month, Congress introduced new legislation that would require the EPA to set new limits for PFAS by 2021-22.
EWG’s report shows that America’s drinking water crisis goes way beyond Flint.
- A Civil War In Sports: Identity Politics Vs Science?
Authored by Onar Am via Liberty Nation,
A decade ago, declaring that a man is a man and a woman is a woman would have been self-evident and uncontroversial. In recent years, however, the debate over transgender rights and identity politics has changed that. In sports, we have seen the rise of biologically male athletes who have been allowed to compete in women’s sports because they self-identify as female.
But not everyone is on board with this postmodern progressive agenda. Some people in sports are fighting back, albeit carefully. In April 2018, the International Association of Athletes Foundation created rules that regulate the maximum amount of testosterone people competing in women’s sports can have, and this would affect among others South African Olympic gold medal winner Caster Semenya.
She challenged the new rule, but on May 1, 2019, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) rejected her appeal. If she wants to compete in sports, she now must take testosterone-suppressing drugs.
A critical fact that has been left out of the story as reported in most mainstream media outlets is that the new rule applies only to intersex individuals who have male chromosomes (XY). The press release by CAS makes this clear:
“The DSD [Differences of Sex Development] covered by the Regulations are limited to athletes with ‘46 XY DSD’ – i.e., conditions where the affected individual has XY chromosomes. Accordingly, individuals with XX chromosomes are not subject to any restrictions or eligibility conditions under the DSD Regulations.”
Since Semenya is covered by these regulations in the ruling by CAS, it implies that she was born a biological male but with some female traits. As early as 2009, media outlets reported that she did not have a womb and that she had internal testicles.
This crucial fact means that the new testosterone rule is only a partial victory for biological females. Although the new regulation requires intersex people to suppress their testosterone production, it indirectly acknowledges the right of people who are born as biological males to compete in a category of sport that is specially created to allow women to compete.
Caster Semenya
Women’s physiology is optimized to make them superior at giving birth. They are highly specialized baby factories. That comes at a cost. Men are typically better athletes. Even the fastest woman to have ever lived, Florence Griffith Joyner, is regularly beaten by junior male runners in colleges all over the country.
Women’s sport was created in recognition of that fact. Just as you need different weight classes in boxing or wrestling to make the competition fair, you also need a separate category for women so that they have a chance to compete on equal biological terms.
That had been considered fair by all – until the progressives came along and demanded that people who self-identify as women should be allowed to compete in a category created explicitly for humans with XX chromosomes.
So far, the progressive left has been allowed to colonize sports and other fields without much opposition by using a designated victim group as a moral spearhead. The CAS ruling shows that resistance is slowly mounting.
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