He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor recompensed us according to our iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, the Lord has so increased his mercy toward them that fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, the Lord pities them that fear him. For he knows our frame: remember that we are dust.
(Psalm 103:10-13)
The East Is From The West

When we wallow in guilt, remorse, and shame over real or imagined sins of the past, we are disdaining God's gift of grace.

Preoccupation with self is always a major component of unhealthy guilt and recrimination. It stirs our emotions, churning in self-destructive ways, closes us in upon the mighty citadel of self, leads to depression and despair, and preempts the presence of a compassionate God. The language of unhealthy guilt is harsh. It is demanding, abusing, criticizing, rejecting, accusing, blaming, condemning, reproaching, and scolding. It is one of impatience and chastisement. Christians are shocked and horrified because they have failed. Unhealthy guilt becomes bigger than life. The image of the childhood story of Chicken Little comes to mind. Guilt becomes the experience in which people feel the sky is falling.

Yes, we feel guilt over sins, but healthy guilt is one which acknowledges the wrong done and feels remorse, but then is free to embrace the forgiveness that has been offered. Healthy guilt focuses on the realization that all has been forgiven, the wrong has been redeemed.We all have shadows and skeletons in our backgrounds. But listen, there is something bigger in this world than we are and that something bigger is full of grace and mercy, patience and ingenuity. The moment the focus of your life shifts from you badness to his goodness and the question becomes not “What have I done?” but “What can he do?” release from remorse can happen; miracle of miracles, you can forgive yourself because you are forgiven, accept yourself because you are accepted, and begin to start building up the very places you once tore down. There is grace to help in every time of trouble. That grace is the secret to being able to forgive ourselves. Trust it. Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

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The Washington Post

After a biblical spring, this is the week that could break the Corn Belt
By Andrew Van Dam, Laris Karklis and Tim Meko

June 4

Article

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Big League Politics

Yes, Canada is Actually Arresting Christian Pastors and Banning Them From Preaching in Public

It is no longer legal to preach the word of Christ on the Canadian streets if others are offended.

Shane Trejo

June 5, 2019

A Christian pastor named David Lynn was arrested and charged with disturbing the peacewith “derogatory comments” on Tuesday for preaching the word of God on a street corner at Church-Wellesley Village in Toronto, ON.

After the disciple of Christ was harassed by a group of unruly protesters, he was hauled off in handcuffs by law enforcement because preaching the Gospel was considered to be a criminal violation.

The LGBT mob cheered on as the man was dragged away in handcuffs, a sign of things to come if their perverse agenda continues unabated.

A police officer even accosted an individual recording the incident, which can be seen here:

“It’s unfortunate that I am subject to this kind of discrimination and bullying and marginalization simply for saying God loves you, there is hope for you, I accept you and tolerate you. I shouldn’t be in this position, I didn’t do anything illegal,” Lynn said following his arrest. He is now out on bond.

Lynn was shown on the video saying frequently that “God is love,” and that he doesn’t hate anyone. This didn’t stop the police from apprehending him anyway.

“I didn’t know this was the start of the pride month…I didn’t say anything specific to the LGBTQ community, it’s all on live stream,” he said to reporters.

Lynn believes that the LGBT protesters and other hostile anti-Christians throughout his country want him to “stay in the closet” about his Christian beliefs. His arrest will send a chilling effect to others who want to preach the word of Christ in the liberal-dominated country.

“It looked as though they had an event waiting for me, and they had some form of hatred against me,” Lynn said.

Lynn is now banned from being anywhere near the areas of Bloor Street, Yonge Street, Carlton Street and Jarvis Street on conditions of his bond. He is also banned from being near any Pride event, as he is now a second-class citizen in globalist-occupied Canada.

Meanwhile, the legislature is working to expand laws against free speech, with the “Prohibiting Hate-Promoting Demonstrations at Queen’s Park Act, 2019,” being considered by Ontario lawmakers. It would ban any demonstration, rally or other activity that is deemed hateful by the government from being permissible on legislative grounds. If you don’t think that will apply to Christian speech, just ask David Lynn.

Christians are now the most persecuted faith on the planet, mostly because of how they are treated by radical Muslims in the third-world. But the third-world is coming to the West, and Christians are going to suffer mightily as a result.

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RT

Imagine suggesting Jews couldn't govern themselves? Kushner's remarks on Palestinians slammed

Published time: 3 Jun, 2019 17:57

© Jared Kushner, Washington (FILE PHOTO) © Reuters / Yuri Gripas

White House envoy Jared Kushner stands accused of “racism” for answering a question about Palestinians’ ability to self-govern by expressing hope they’ll be capable of this in the future – implying they’re incapable of this now.

In a sit-down interview with Axios on HBO, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump and his charge d’affaires for brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal triggered a storm of anger when he equivocated about Palestinian competence. “We’ll have to see,” said Kushner. “The hope is that they [Palestinians], over time, will become capable of governing.”

Kushner’s comments – called “racist” by some observers – put in doubt the possibility that the so-called “deal of the century” he has been hawking for over a year and a half stands a chance of meeting the minimum expectations of Palestinians, let alone cracking the code for a peace agreement that has long eluded the land’s inhabitants.

His remarks elicited scorn from Twitter users, especially from Palestinian figures. “One of the painful things to listen to is Jared Kushner pretending that he knows – or cares – what the ‘Palestinian people’ want,” wrote Palestinian-American professor Shibley Telhami.

“The Palestinian people don’t need half a man to decide if they are capable of governing themselves,” wrote US-based Palestinian analyst Mohammad Oweis, in a tweet dripping with rage. “We have seen enough sh*t like him since 1948,” he said, a reference to the year the State of Israel was founded.

Matt Duss, a foreign policy adviser for US Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, argued that Kushner’s comments unwittingly revealed that he views Palestinians through a prejudicial lens. “This is the racist subtext of so much conservative pro-Israel advocacy, but Jared is too inexperienced to know it’s supposed to stay subtext,”tweeted Duss.

Some progressive Jewish pundits likewise slammed Kushner for his remarks, also attributing to him anti-Palestinian prejudice. “Democrats and Jewish leaders should be calling out Kushner's egregious racism. Can you imagine the outrage if someone suggested Jews couldn't govern themselves?” tweeted Max Berger, co-founder of the liberal US Jewish activist group If Not Now. “Why is it okay to say that about Palestinians? Because Islamophobia is extremely powerful in the US,”Berger opined.

The policy and strategy director for the liberal Jewish charity New Israel Fund, Harry Reis, said he doubted that the embryonic peace plan Kushner is promoting remotely resembles his description of it. ”Kushner[’s] scheme is clearly designed to peel back whatever progress towards self rule was achieved at Oslo, not build on it,” tweeted Reis. “The aim may very well be to collapse the institutions of the Palestinian national government and cement annexation.”

In further remarks to Axios, broadcast on HBO, Kushner asserted that Palestinians should judge the US peace plan on whether or not it will improve their lives, not on whether they trust him – its co-author. “I’m not here to be trusted,” he said.

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WND

SLIPPERY SLOPE: TEEN EUTHANIZED FOR 'INSUFFERABLE' LIFE

Assisted-suicide pioneer regrets allowing it for depression

Art Moore

June 4, 2019

Noa Pothoven (Instagram)

Explaining that the pain of a childhood rape was “insufferable,” a 17-year-old Dutch girl took advantage of the Netherlands’ assisted suicide law and was euthanized on Sunday.

In her autobiography, “Winning or Learning,” Noa Pothoven recounted her battles with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anorexia after being molested and raped as a young child, reported News.com.au.

She wrote in an Instagram post the day before she died that “after years of battling and fighting, I am drained.”

“After I have quit eating and drinking for a while now, and after many discussions and evaluations, it was decided to let me go because my suffering is unbearable,” Pothoven wrote.

Second thoughts

WND reported in 2017 a Dutch psychiatrist whose lawsuit opened the door to allowing assisted suicide in the Netherlands for people suffering depression was having second thoughts.

Boudewijn Chabot, in an article titled “Worrisome Culture Shift in the Context of Self-Selected Death,” decried the new practice of allowing psychiatrists without a therapeutic relationship with a patient to determine whether assisted suicide is permissible under the law.

Wesley Smith, a leading bioethics expert and opponent of assisted suicide and euthanasia, wrote in a column for National Review that he predicted the development.

“Euthanasia consciousness changes mindsets. It alters societal morality,” he said. “It distorts our views of the importance of vulnerable lives. It leads to abandonment and various forms of subtle and blatant coercion. Over time, it can’t be controlled.”

The Netherlands became the first nation to allow assisted suicide after a series of court cases in the 1980s formalized the criteria for it, culminating in a 2002 law. Along with Canada and Belgium, assisted suicide is legal in the U.S. states of Oregon, Washington, California, Colorado, Vermont, Hawaii and Washington, D.C. A New Jersey law will take effect Aug. 1.

In the Netherlands, children can be euthanized if a doctor determines that the patient’s pain is unbearable.

A resident of Arnhem, Holland, Pothoven urged friends and followers on Instagram to “not convince me that this is not good, this is my decision and it is final.”

“Love is letting go, in this case,” she wrote.

Crossing the Rubicon

Chabot also is concerned about people being euthanized against their will.

In his article, he recounted three reports in the Netherlands “of euthanasia of deep-demented persons who could not confirm their death wish.”

In February 2017, a Dutch doctor carrying out a lethal injection on an elderly Alzheimer’s patient ordered her family to restrain her when she resisted, creating what even euthanasia advocates called a “horrible picture.”

The case in Amsterdam, the National Catholic Register reported, was one of several similar instances of resistance, including a sex-abuse victim in her 20s, a 41-year-old alcoholic and a woman with ringing in her ears.

In nearby Belgium, euthanasia was broadened five years ago to include children.

Alistair Thompson of the anti-euthanasia advocacy group Care Not Killing told the Register it’s a typical slippery-slope scenario.

“The problem is that the law always evolves. It’s always pushed on, a little bit, and a little bit,” he said.

“Once you’ve crossed the Rubicon, it becomes people who are not mentally competent, people who are frail or weary of life.”

***

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The Common Sense Show

Are Media Outlets Conspiring to Commence the First Stage of Project Blue Beam?

Submitted by Dave Hodges on Sunday, June 2, 2019 - 15:59.

It is called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, known as AATIP. According to Luis Elizondo, the alleged former director of the program, this covert Pentagon group was responsible for investigating UFO/ET related events and did so for eight years. And just magically Elizondo is becoming a household name. This is not the way that the intelligence community operates! And to make matters even more unbelievable, there is a new History Channel TV show that appears to be a bad remake of Jesse Ventura’s show, Conspiracy Theory.

Elizondo appears on this History Channel show and he has even appeared on Tucker Carlson and stated that what he saw “was not of this world”. I grew up in the intelligence community and have multiple intelligence community contacts. This is clearly a case of disinformation. And it is disinformation with an agenda. And it is an agenda that is not human friendly and will turn out to be the bane of human civilization. But first, we need to take a look of the second verse of this conspiracy designed to get the public to draw false conclusions.

Just coincidentally, or not so coincidentally, another former Pentagon official with a prominent role in the History Channel TV show “Unidentified” has now appeared on Fox & Friends.

Chris Mellon, a deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence in both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations stated the following:

We know that UFOs exist, this is no longer an issue. The issue is why are they here? Where are they coming from? And what is the technology behind these devices that we are observing?

What we are seeing here, is nothing but pure unmitigated fiction. This has to be one of the sloppiest disinformation campaigns in intelligence community history. I am hysterically laughing at anyone who believe this nonsense with very ill-timed coincidences designed to perpetuate a false flag and that event has a name. The name is Project Bluebeam.

In the interest of objectivity, we should note that during the Obama administration, Putin threatened to reveal the existence of UFO's. Is this one of the reasons behind the marginalization of Russia by the Deep State? More stunning evidence surfaced in an UK publication that is revealing the Obama and Putin had discussed creating a planetary defense system to defend against alien attack. Of course, most will be skeptical. However, we should be mindful of the Operation Bluebeam was indeed real and it was about perpetuating a fake alien invasion in order to introduce a planetary government in response to the threat and here's why. When Trump talks about a vague and nebulous threat of an unspecified nature, this is one of the places my mind will visit.

Although, both the Elizondo and Mellon accounts are totally fiction, we are forced to consider all sides of the argument.

The Prevalence of the Perception of the Alien Threat

The Internet is increasingly carrying content about the ET/UFO subject. For example, the highly respected Mike Adams (Natural News) wrote a story on the pitfalls of first contact. Famous people from many walks of life are taking notice. From Presidents (e.g. Jimmy Carter) to Astronauts (e.g. Edgar Mitchel who walked on the moon) to high ranking government officials (e.g. Paul Hellyer the retired Canadian Secretary of Defense), have proclaimed interest and knowledge on the topic. Yet, there is not formal recognition of the phenomenon from our leaders. Putin has warned the United States that if disclosure does not come soon, he will force the issue out into the open. One would have to possess a very closed mind to not give this topic some attention.

Three Possibilities

From where I sit, there are three possibilities when it comes to the topics of ET's/UFO's.

  1. There are ET's behind the scenes manipulating mankind in order to control our destiny. Some suggest that is why the planet is in such disarray.

  2. This is part of the great deception and ET's are actually fallen angels and the have come to deceive and form one world government for Satan to rule over.

  3. This is a carefully orchestrated plot designed to fool the people on this planet that we are in danger from ET's and will come to accept global governance as a means of protection against the perceived threat. The Navy Has Created Technology to Carry Out Project Blue Beam

Of the three possibilities listed above, I lean heavily towards the fact we are being set up for a fake alien invasion that goes by the name, Project Blue Beam. As I have discovered, the US Navy has developed technology which can fake just about anything. This type of technology can be utilized to facilitate Project Blue Beam and the fake alien invasion. Here is a brief summary of this possibility.

This topic is still open, however, it is safe to say that the Pentagon did not maintain a covert program related to national security only to have it exposed on Tucker Carlson or the History Channel. This is laughable. However, if this is the early stages of Operation Blue Beam this is no laughing matter as we are witnessing the plot to usher in the New World Order, the sacrifice of national sovereignty in order to usher in global governance of a Satanic nature.

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The Common Sense Show

FEMA Camps of the Mind

Submitted by Dave Hodges on Saturday, June 1, 2019 - 13:39.

I have a friend, his name is Vance Davis. At one time,ance Davis existed in the upper levels of power in the world. He was an NSA agent attached to NATO. Of all the people I have known, Vance reshaped my world view. I came to fully understand Steve Quayle’s admonition that one cannot solve the dilemma that has become the New World Order, with physical strategies. Physical strategies must be employed, however, as Steve states “this is a spiritual war above all else”. When Steve made that statement on my radio show, I knew he was correct because I heard the same from my father (1984-1986). And then came along, Vance Davis.

The Late Great Art Bell

The first time I have ever heard to the Art Bell show was in 1993 an it was quite by accident. The show formerly aired on Phoenix’s largest station, KTAR. With my wife out of town on business, I had just listened to a sporting event on the radio as I was working on a proect, and with the radio still playing, I laid down and I had my first exposure to Art Bell. His first guest was Vance Davis. Vance had recently been released from prison because while working at NATO for the NSA, he discovered a plot to effectively destroy humanity. He and some of his colleagues deserted their post, refusing to participate in what they had been tasked with doing. You might be wondering what would cause a loyal American to desert? Vance learned about a plot that had initially failed to alter the soul of a human being, so transhumanism was ushered in as a strategy and it had an ET connection to it. Someday, I will ask Vance to reveal the primal details. For now, let’s just suffice it to say that Vance refused to participate in the early days and the ushering in of the transhumanistic agenda. Those of you who missed Steve Quayle’s conference in Branson, MO., last year, missed a great opportunity to fully understand Satan’s transhumanistic agenda which is designed for all of us. For now, let's just say the words "depopulation" and "dehumanization" will suffice.

Following his desertion, Vance and his colleagues were caught and thrown into solitary confinement in prison. Eventually, one of the most evil men to ever serve in the White House, George H. W. Bush, will pardon Vance and his colleagues. They had hoped that a CIA psyops already in place would totally discredit their story.

At the same time, I was in my 9th year of keeping the secrets my father revealed to me regarding his work in the R & D component of reverse engineering Nazi scientists’ technological breakthroughs. To a man, the Nazi scientists told my father that aliens were the source of their breakthroughs in physics. My father told me that the scientists, themselves never claimed to have met these aliens, but they said their supervisors did. My father thought it was a cover story. However, my father did not live long enough to learn what I have about the topic.

In the interview with Art Bell, Vance revealed the secret agenda to take down humanity. Transhumanism was not yet in our lexicon, but that is what he was describing. After listening to the interview, I was convinced that Vance probably knew what my father did about the Nazi connection to our military and our secret space program. I was handicapped by my promise to my father to not to publicly reveal what he had told me because my mother would lose his pension and probably all material assets that he had accumulated. However, I did reach out to Vance, because I surmised that he knew a lot more than what he revealed in the interview.

I eventually tracked down Vance and left a message. Instead of calling me he had an associate, Bill Pawelec reach out to me. Bill, at the time was the owner of a cable TV company in the Albuquerque area. As I was to learn, Bill Pawelec was ex-Air Force Intel and did contract work for the CIA. As coincidence would have it, Bill actually worked with my father for a year at Sundstrand Electric in Westminster, CO. When Bill called me on Vance’s behalf, he put me through an intense interrogation. Eventually, he put Vance and I together.

As I have revealed in a previous article, the three of us along with former astronaut, Ken Anderson, began to work with CEO, Ken Lay, from Enron and we were working on what we could now call, Zero Point energy. We had made plans with Enron to publicly reveal this technology through the creation of a community to be constructed in the San Luis Valley in Colorado. However, before the project could be brought to fruition, the Deep State swooped in and framed Ken Lay for crimes that I do not believe he committed. All of us connected to this project, had a our lives disrupted. Bill Pawelec contracted cancer and died very quickly and I never believe that this was a coincidence. Ken Lay, the CEO of Enron, did NOT commit suicide as this false narrative was sold to the public.

Actually, what happened to us was not the first time history has witnessed the suppression of this technology. Tesla was a victim of this coverup as well.

The development of this technology would have produced a free and independent humanity. The planet could have sustained a population of billions of more people than currently exist. This is antithetical to the depopulation agenda being forced upon humanity.

I have said it before and I will say it again, the TV show, Colony, which is in syndication on Netflix accurately lays out the plot as laid out in this article. Whoever, produced this show completely understands this agenda and its ultimate implications for humanity.

Senior NATO Non Commissioned Officer, Robert O. Dean

Those familiar with Robert Dean may be shocked to find out that our group had intimate contact with NATOs Senior Master Sergeant Dean. As NATO’s senior Noncom, I am certain that people with a military background will appreciate that Dean had the power of a high ranking general. In a series of closed door and private briefings, Dean revealed the ET connection to NATO, which in part was formed to control the Europeans “accidental” revelations of these facts and the accompanying agenda.

Ladies and gentlemen, FEMA camp incarcerations and eventual genocide is coming to America along with a devastating lost World War (III). See the Deagel report which is, in part, published on The Common Sense Show. However, before this modern day version of Stalin, Mao and Hitler can commence, there is a definitive psyops that I learned from Bob Dean that is in play. Make no mistake about it, humanity is on a countdown for total rendition.

Prisons of the Mind

The New World Order goal to reduce the population and to brainwash the survivors does not have its origins from human entities. I have extensively covered the work of Jose Delgado and eventually what would become the beginnings of the CIA's mind control program originally run out of Stanford Research Institute (SRI).

I have also covered the fine work of Nick Begich Jr. (Angels Don't Play This Haarp). However, there is someone I want to introduce the audience to and her name was Rauni-Leena Luukanen-Kilde. This scientist, in 2015, attended a European conference on the topic of mind control and the use of vaccines to achieve this objective.

Rauni-Leena Luukanen-Kilde's last words at the conference:

...Today microchips of the size of 2 micromillimeter (hair diameter is 50 micromm) are inserted into general population without their consent e.g. in vaccinations-like the "swineflu" vaccin for their total control. Medical personnel working in the field get different information of vaccine content than researchers and "insiders" who follow UN Agenda 21 for depopulation by 85% of the world population with various means.

All medical schools teach that one is mentally ill if you hear voices in your head, feel that you are surveilled (often by neighbors), poisoned, beamed with microwaves and laser attacks, feel that your thoughts and dreams are read and reacted to by strangers and if you experience contact with the energy of a deceived relative, which according to European values, Gallup Poll, already 41% of Icelanders do.

Never do medical schools teach the differential diagnose of MK and the fact that this military technology exists and has been used for over half a century in total secrecy. In military mind control is listed as a "nonlethal "weapon but in psychiatry the whole subject is tabu and considered as sign of mental illness to cover up unethical research on humans. Under the UN Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva has the year 2002 in which it listed mind control as a weapon of mass destruction along side with atom bombs!

We have to help ourselves. Nobody is going to help us. No institute, no government, because we are under the government. And these are government crimes, crimes against humanity. And it is on the very highest level in every single country. You can go up to the prime minister or the president . . . and they are behind false flag operations.

So what can we do? First of all it's awareness, awareness, awareness. Talk about it to anybody. And people told me who are not victims they will not listen, and they don't want to listen because they are afraid. Because if they listen they know they may become victims. So they just deny everything. But we have to. Because one thing that helps us, I think. We know there is no death, we have an energy body. And it does keep us going and if it doesn't keep you going, it keeps me going because you know you cannot die. And that's why I am not afraid. (Editor's note: Perhaps she should have been afraid, Kilde was murdered immediately following this conference). We are talking about FEMA camps for the mind and this is ongoing as I write these words. This will not be the last work on this topic. In the meantime, make plans to attend Steve Quayle's conference in Branson this September.

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ALT-MARKET.com

The Next Stage Of The Engineered Global Economic Reset Has Arrived

Brandon Smith

June 6, 2019

When discussing the fact that globalists often deliberately engineer economic crisis events, certain questions inevitably arise. The primary question being “Why would the elites ruin a system that is already working in their favor...?” The answer is in some ways complicated because there are multiple factors that motivate the globalists to do the things they do. However, before we get into explanations we have to understand that this kind of question is rooted in false assumptions, not logic.

The first assumption people make is that that current system is the ideal globalist system – it's not even close.

When studying globalist literature and white papers, from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, to H.G. Wells' book The New World Order and his little known film Things To Come, to Manly P. Hall's collection of writings titled 'The All Seeing Eye', to Carol Quigley's Tragedy And Hope, to the Club Of Rome documents, to Zbigniew Brzezinski's Between Two Ages, to former UN Director Robert Muller's Good Morning World documents, to Henry Kissinger's Assembly Of A New World Order, to the IMF and UN's Agenda 2030, to nearly every document on globalization that is published by the Council on Foreign Relations, we see a rather blatant end goal described.

To summarize: For at least the past century the globalists have been pursuing a true one world system that is not covert, but overt. They want conscious public acceptance of a completely centralized global economic system, a single global currency, a one world government, and a one world religion (though that particular issue will require an entirely separate article).

To attain such a lofty and ultimately destructive goal, they would have to create continuous cycles of false prosperity followed by catastrophe. Meaning, great wars and engineered economic collapse are their primary tools to condition the masses to abandon their natural social and biological inclinations towards individualism and tribalism and embrace the collectivist philosophy. They created the current system as a means to an end. It is not their Utopian ideal; in fact, the current system was designed to fail. And, in that failure, the intended globalist “order” is meant to be introduced. The Hegelian Dialectic describes this strategy as Problem, Reaction, Solution.

This is the reality that many people just don't seem to grasp. Even if they are educated on the existence of the globalist agenda, they think the globalists are trying to protect the system that exists, or protect the so-called “deep state”. But this is a propaganda meme that does not describe the bigger picture. The big picture is at the same time much worse, and also more hopeful.

The truth is that the old world order of the past century is a sacrificial measure, like the booster stage of a rocket to space that falls away and burns up in the atmosphere once it is expended. If you do not accept the reality that the globalists destroy in order to create opportunities for gain, then you will never be able to get a handle on why current events are taking the shape they are.

Of course, in public discourse the elites have learned to temper their language and how they describe their agenda. Public knowledge, or at least general awareness of the “new world order” is growing, and so they are forced to introduce the idea of a vast societal and economic shift in a way that sounds less nefarious and is relatively marketable. They also have a tendency to hint at events or warn about disasters that are about to happen; disasters they are about to cause. Perhaps this is simply a way to insulate themselves from blame once the suffering starts.

The International Monetary Fund began spreading a meme a few years ago as a way to describe a global economic crash without actually saying the word “crash”. Managing Director Christine Lagarde and others started using the phrase “global economic reset” in reference to greater centralization of economic and monetary management, all in the wake of a kind of crisis that was left mostly ambiguous. What she was describing was simply another name for the new world order, but it was one of the first times we had seen a globalist official actually hint that the change or “reset” would be built on the ashes of the old world system, rather than simply built as an extension of it.

Lagarde's message was essentially this: “Collective” cooperation will not just be encouraged in the new order, it will be required — meaning, the collective cooperation of all nations toward the same geopolitical and economic framework. If this is not accomplished, great fiscal pain will be felt and “spillover” will result. Translation: Due to the forced interdependency of globalism, crisis in one country could cause a domino effect of crisis in other countries; therefore, all countries and their economic behavior must be managed by a central authority to prevent blundering governments or "rogue central banks" from upsetting the balance.

The IMF and the CFR also refer to this as the “new multilateralism”, or the “multipolar world order”.

I believe the next stage of the economic reset has now begun in 2018 and 2019. In this phase of the globalist created theater, we see the world being torn apart by the “non-cooperation” that Lagarde and the CFR warned us about in 2015. The trade war is swiftly becoming a world economic war drawing in multiple nations on either side. This scenario only benefits the globalists, as it provides perfect cover as they initiate a crash of the historically massive 'Everything Bubble' which they have spent the last ten years inflating just for this moment.

As I predicted in my article 'World War III Will Be An Economic War', published in April of 2018, the tariff conflict between the US and China has become an excellent catalyst for the global reset. In my article 'America Loses When The Trade War Becomes A Currency War', published in June of 2018, I stated:

“One question that needs to be addressed is how long the current trade war will last? Some people claim that economic hostilities will be short-lived, that foreign trading partners will quickly capitulate to the Trump administration’s demands and that any retaliation against tariffs will be meager and inconsequential. If this is the case and the trade war moves quickly, then I would agree — very little damage will be done to the U.S. economy beyond what has already been done by the Federal Reserve.

However, what if it doesn’t end quickly? What if the trade war drags on for the rest of Trump’s first term? What if it bleeds over into a second term or into the regime of a new president in 2020? This is exactly what I expect to happen, and the reason why I predict this will be the case rests on the opportunities such a drawn out trade war will provide for the globalists.”

The economic world has a very short attention span, but a year ago in the alternative media the trade war was being treated by Trump cheerleaders in particular as a novelty – a non-issue that would be resolved in a matter of a months with Trump victorious. Today, those same people are now vocal trade war fans, waving their pom-poms and screaming for more as they buy completely into the farce. Mentioning the fact that the trade war is only serving as a distraction so that the globalists can complete their economic reset agenda does not seem to phase them.

They usually make one of two arguments: Trump is an anti-globalist that is tearing down the “deep state” system and the trade war is part of his “4D chess game”. Or, the globalists don't have enough control over the current system to achieve the kind of “conspiracy” I describe here.

First, going by his associations alone, it is clear that Donald Trump is controlled opposition playing the role of “anti-globalist” while at the same time stacking his cabinet with the very same elites he is supposedly at war with. As I have outlined in numerous articles, Trump was bought off in the 1990's when he was saved from possible permanent bankruptcy by Rothschild banking agent Wilber Ross. Trump made Ross his Commerce Secretary as soon as he entered the White House, and Ross is one of the key figures in the developing trade war.

At this point I have to say that anyone arguing that Trump is “playing 4D chess” with the banking elites while he is surrounded by them on a daily basis must be clinically insane. Every economic and trade policy Trump has initiated in the past two years has served as a smokescreen for the globalists controlled demolition of the economy. As the reset continues in the midst of the trade war, it will be Trump and by extension all conservatives that get the blame. Trump is a pied piper of doom for conservative movements, which is why I have always said any attempts to impeach Trump (before the crash is completed) will fail. The globalists like him exactly where he is.

Second, there is a globalist controlled central bank in almost every nation in the world, including supposedly anti-globalist countries in the East like Russia and China. All of these central banks are coordinated through the Bank For International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. The globalists covertly dictate the economic policy of nearly the entire planet. They can easily create an economic collapse anytime they wish. This is a fact.

However, what they do not control is how elements of the public will react to their reset agenda. And this is where we find hope. They do not have their “new world order” yet, which is why they have to resort to elaborate theatrics and psychological operations. They know that an awake and aware segment of the population could annihilate them tomorrow with the right motivation, and so, they continue to distract us with a swarm of other concerns and calamities.

The purpose is to convince the masses to focus on all the wrong enemies while ignoring organized and psychopathic elites as the root of threat to humanity. We are supposed to hate the Russians, or hate the Chinese, or hate people on the left, or hate people on the right, and so it goes on. But these conflicts are just symptoms of a deeper disease. The great danger is that the focus on globalists as the virus will fade from public consciousness and conservative circles in particular as the trade war becomes a world war and economic collapse results in financial pain.

The reset is upon us. The narrative of the collapse is being written before our eyes. The end game rests not on the globalists, though, but proponents of liberty and sovereignty. Either we keep our crosshairs on the true enemy, or we get sucked into the maelstrom and forget who we are and why we are here. If the latter occurs, then the globalist reset will be assured.

***

The Economic Collapse

Economic Chaos Erupts! – Global Manufacturing Plunges, The Trade War Expands And The Nasdaq Enters Correction Territory

by Michael Snyder

June 3, 2019

The global economic slowdown is really starting to accelerate. Just within the past few days, we have gotten more really awful global manufacturing numbers, the trade war has expanded to more nations, and the Nasdaq has officially entered correction territory. We have not witnessed this sort of global economic environment since the Great Recession, and if the economic chaos continues to escalate it won’t take too much to spark a brand new financial crisis. Of course the global financial system is far more vulnerable than it was back in 2008, and so if we stay on the path that we are currently on we could be facing a nightmare scenario very rapidly.

Let’s talk about the manufacturing numbers first. The numbers coming out of Germany are already at a crisis level, and manufacturing is also now contracting in Japan, South Korea and China as well.

Overall, global manufacturing as a whole has now fallen into contraction territory for the first time in seven years…

Global manufacturing was the weakest since 2012 last month, a victim of mounting trade tensions and further reason to worry that the world economy is weakening.

With softness in Germany, Japan, the U.K. — as well as the lowest U.S. result in a decade — IHS Markit’s global Purchasing Managers Index fell to 49.8 in May, below the 50 level that divides expansion from contraction.

The reports underscore the growing threat posed by the escalating U.S.-China trade war, and they coincided with a fresh warning from Wall Street about recession risks.

The reason why so many people are freaking out about these numbers is because this is exactly what we would expect to see if we were entering a global recession.

Meanwhile, global financial markets are looking increasingly shaky. On Monday, the Nasdaq fell another 120 points and it has now officially entered correction territory…

Stocks ended mostly lower Monday, June’s first day of trading, amid reports that the U.S. government is planning to target a host of big tech companies with antitrust and business practice probes. Shares of Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook and Apple all weighed on the market during Monday’s session.

The Nasdaq dropped 1.6% to enter correction territory, closing more than 10% below its record high set in late April.

The term “correction territory” might not mean a lot to many of you, so let me put what is happening in terms you may understand.

On Monday alone, America’s most prominent tech stocks lost approximately 150 billion dollars in value. It looks like the Trump administration is getting ready to go to war with the big tech companies, and that is really, really bad news for tech investors. The following comes from Breitbart…

The Masters of the Universe got hit hard by investors on Monday. Like $150 billion hard.

Shares of the top tech giants fell sharply on Monday after reports that U.S. antitrust regulators had divided up oversight of the sector, with the Department of Justice assuming responsibility for Alphabet and Apple and the Federal Trade Commission taking on Facebook and Amazon. This triggered fears that the government could mount challenges to the business models of the companies.

Shares of Alphabet dived 6.1 percent on Monday after the Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department is in the early stage of preparing an antitrust probe of the company. Reuters reported that the Department of Justice is also looking into Apple’s business for possible antitrust violations.

Speaking of war, our trade conflict with China continues to escalate. The mainstream media hasn’t been talking much about it, but apparently the Chinese have decided to put purchases of U.S. soybeans “on hold” until a trade agreement is reached…

China, the world’s largest soybean buyer, has put purchases of American supplies on hold after the trade war between Washington and Beijing escalated, according to people familiar with the matter.

State-grain buyers haven’t received any further orders to continue with the so-called goodwill buying and don’t expect that to happen given the lack of agreement in trade negotiations, said the people, who asked not to be named because the information is private.

U.S. soybean farmers have been sitting on unprecedented amounts of soybeans in hopes that an end to the trade war would raise prices.

But instead, demand for U.S. soybeans is going to go through the floor, and this could potentially force thousands of soybean farmers into bankruptcy.

And in addition to our trade war with China, the Trump administration has apparently decided that now is a good time to start a trade war with Mexico…

From produce to cars, a wide variety of Mexican goods could become more expensive if Trump follows through on his threat to hit Mexican imports with tariffs that soon could climb to 25%. Trump wants to pressure Mexico into doing more to halt the flow of Central American migrants to the U.S. via the Mexican border.

The tariffs, set to begin June 10, would gradually climb to 25% on Oct. 1 if Mexico doesn’t take steps “to dramatically reduce or eliminate” the number of migrants, Trump said Thursday. Such a strategy would hurt American shoppers, the economy and stocks, experts say, just as U.S. growth is slowing and the threat of more tariffs on Chinese imports looms larger.

At least in this case the U.S. and Mexico are still talking, and so perhaps some kind of resolution can be reached.

On top of everything else, the Trump administration has also just decided to add India to the trade war as well…

Mr. Trump on Friday said India would be removed from the U.S.’s privileged-trading program called the Generalized System of Preferences on Wednesday. Under the decadeslong program meant for some developing economies, the U.S. had allowed India to avoid tariffs on certain exports to the U.S. in the interest of promoting tighter trade ties and development.

India, the U.S.’s ninth-largest trading partner, is a top beneficiary of the GSP program. Mr. Trump’s move will add tariffs of as much as 7% on Indian exports of goods like chemicals, auto parts and tableware to the U.S., which in 2018 accounted for more than 11%, or $6.3 billion, of India’s total exports of goods valued at $54.4 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service, a research agency for the U.S. Congress.

A global trade war is going to be incredibly painful for everyone, and this is all happening at a time when the global economy was already starting to slow down substantially.

Here in the United States, a lot of businesses are really starting to notice a big decline in economic activity. Here is just one example that was published on Zero Hedge earlier today…

Down here, in Texas, I am seeing a big drop in economic activity over the last 6 months. Our healthcare businesses’ volume over this period is at 629, down from 770, year-on-year, almost a 20% decline, and the worst six month decline in our 15 year history. We have been pulling out all of the stops for business development, cutting overhead, and running all the QC traps to determine if it is something within our business, within our local market, within our industry, or having to do with the economy in general.

In this period, we have seen seven competitors go out of business in our city. We have recently confirmed similar experiences with colleagues in Kentucky, Colorado, and elsewhere in Texas. One of them asked me, “If this is not temporary, what would the strategy be?” My response was, “Hunker in the bunker and wait for everyone else to die.”

This is what we have all been preparing for, and things are going to get progressively tougher in the months ahead.

Unfortunately, most Americans are completely and totally clueless about what is ahead. Today, 59 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and the truth is that the vast majority of us are entirely unprepared to go through another recession.

And of course many believe that what we are facing is going to be much worse than just a “recession”. A perfect storm is rapidly coming together, and the chaos that we have seen so far is nothing compared to what is rapidly approaching.

***

RT

Dollar dump? Russia & China agree to bilateral trade in national currencies during Putin-Xi meeting

Published time: 5 Jun, 2019 15:38 Edited time: 5 Jun, 2019 16:04

© Sputnik / Alexandr Demyanchuk

Russia and China took another step away from the US dollar after the two countries agreed to develop bilateral trade using the ruble and the yuan.

It was just one of the major deals reached after the presidents of the two countries, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, held talks in Moscow on Wednesday.

“Russia and China intend to develop the practice of settlements in national currencies,” Putin told journalists at the news conference following the talks. He added that the states have signed intergovernmental agreements on expanding the use of the yuan and the ruble in bilateral financial operations.

A draft government decree on the national currencies trade was released earlier during the day. The document stipulates that Moscow and Beijing will cooperate on development of national payment systems, as well as facilitate cross-border payments in national and other currencies.

During the signing ceremony other major agreements were reached. Russia’s state nuclear company Rosatom and China National Nuclear Power (CNNP) penned a general contract on building the third and fourth units at Xudapu nuclear plant in northeastern China.

It was earlier reported that the deal is worth $1.7 billion and construction is scheduled to begin in October 2021 and August 2022.

In another major deal, inked following the high-level talks, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), China’s Alibaba, and Russia’s Mail.Ru Group agreed to invest a total of $382 million into an e-commerce joint venture. Alibaba Group is to provide some $100 million, while the rest will be funded by the Russian side.

The RDIF also signed a deal with China Investment Corporation (CIC) to create a joint scientific innovation fund and invest $1 billion into it.

“We expect that its activities will make a significant contribution to the development and implementation of the most advanced technologies and solutions for the development of the economies of our countries and the further strengthening of our partnership,” RDIF CEO Kirill Dmitriev said.

After the Moscow talks, presidents Putin and Xi Jinping will depart for St Petersburg to take part in Russia’s key annual business event. Dozens of multi-billion dollar deals related to energy, industry, and finance, are expected to be signed during the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, which runs from June 6 to June 8.

cr

Mexican government admits 80% of its populated territory is run by cartels, including key border areas

Daniel Horowitz June 3, 2019

As of last year, the Taliban controlled or contested 46 percent of the districts in Afghanistan’s civil war. That was enough justification for us to keep our military perpetually engaged there in combat. What if you were told that 80 percent of Mexico’s territory is controlled by dangerous cartels, including all of the key smuggling routes at our border, and that the cartels are orchestrating all of the illegal immigration into our territory and bringing their members back and forth across our own border?

Several weeks ago, the Mexican investigative journal Contralínea posted a map of Mexico prepared by the government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), showing that 80 percent of the country’s 266 districts recently targeted for enforcement by the Mexican National Guard in a new counter-cartel operation are either controlled (57.5 percent) or disputed (23.3 percent) by the cartels. “Only 53 (19.92 percent) enjoy a low level of violence, which means that control is exercised by the authorities,” reported Contralínea on May 4, citing the data on the color-coded map.

As you can see, Mexico looks awfully similar to Afghanistan in terms of how much is controlled by insurgent groups. The map of Mexico shows the districts in red fully controlled by the cartels, the ones in yellow in dispute, and the ones in green in control of the Mexican government. They all represent priority enforcement areas for a new Mexican National Guard operation against the cartels proposed by the AMLO regime.

It’s important to note that according to Jaeson Jones, retired captain of Texas’ Department of Public Safety Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division, the priority areas color-coded on the map are mainly the areas where people live, and the ones left out are simply not a priority, not because the cartels don’t control most of those areas, but because there is little infrastructure or population in those areas.

For example, the areas color-coded at the border are all the cities where people live, such as Tijuana, Mexicali, San Luis, Nogales, Juarez, Piedras Negras, Loredo, Miguel Alimen, and Reynosa (going west to east). And notice how every one of them is controlled by the cartels. All of the major smuggling areas leaning into California, Nogales, Arizona, El Paso, Texas, and the Rio Grande Valley of Texas are fully controlled by the cartels. The other areas are deserts with few people and no infrastructure, so they weren’t a priority for the Mexican government’s campaign, but they still affect our security because the cartels are sending large flows of migrants in areas like Antelope Wells, New Mexico, which are absolutely controlled by Sinaloa.

Thus, we now see from an internal document of the Mexican government an admission that Mexico has essentially lost control over every important populated area in Mexico outside Mexico City and a few others, and particularly the most sensitive areas of the U.S.-Mexican border.

So why do we not have Special Operations Command engaged in protecting our border from the cartels? Unlike the Taliban, cartel operatives come over our border all the time. Why do the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and the State Department refuse to recognize the border issue as a military problem and agree to target the cartels as terrorists?

If the Taliban were orchestrating a flow of mass migration across parts of Afghani-controlled territory, strategically shutting down our security, and profiting from it, we would instantly take military action. When Mexican cartels are placing our own country in mortal danger, why is that not reason enough to treat this is a military threat instead of an immigration issue?

What is amazing is that Border Patrol and the National Guard are ordered not to engage the cartels and armed smugglers at all and cannot nab any of them even a few feet over our border for concern of violating Mexico’s sovereignty. We won’t even fight back when they detain and disarm our regular military units on our own side of the river. Yet, we now see that the Mexican government itself admits it has no sovereignty over that area. Why should we allow our sovereignty to be trampled by cartel figures going back and forth with impunity when fighting them won’t even violate Mexican sovereignty and will actually help it?

Our government is fully aware of this dynamic. This map of control was sent out by a federal agency to Border Patrol in a daily intelligence briefing on May 9. CR has obtained a copy of this briefing from a Border Patrol agent who must remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak to the press. Why the relevant government agencies refuse to recognize the border as an insurgency conflict rather than simply an immigration issue remains a mystery.

Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, and Mark Green, R-Tenn., asked the president to designate the cartels as terrorists earlier this year. This move would open up new resources to target the cartels and to treat all of our border policies in a much different light than simply a domestic immigration problem. Yet the State Department continues to balk.

The cartels have long passed the stage of simply profiting from drugs. They are international organizations that are engaged in endless criminality, most prominently human smuggling, but they seek to control territory and terrorize populations as well. Mexican drug cartels seek to replace local governments by imposing their own law. The Mexican cartel culture is similar to the ideology of ISIS and al Qaeda in the sense that they seek “to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) or to effect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping,” which is the definition of international terrorism defined under 18 U.S.C. § 2331.

The day we solve our sovereignty issue will be the day our government finally prioritizes the security of America the way it prioritizes the security of the Afghani government. That will not happen until we take our sovereignty as serious as we do the sovereignty of the Mexican government’s ever-diminishing control over a handful of cities.

Zero Hedge

Debt-Laden Americans Flee Country To Escape Crushing Student Loans

By Tyler Durden

May 31, 2019

Faced with crushing student loans and little ability to repay them, some Americans have taken to fleeing the country in order to escape their debt, according to CNBC's Annie Nova.

"It’s kind of like, if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it really exist?" said 29-year-old Chad Haag, who relocated from Colorado to a jungle in India to avoid paying his $20,000 loan balance. "I've put America behind me," said Haag - 9,000 miles away from home.

Today he lives in a concrete house in the village of Uchakkada for $50 a month. His backyard is filled with coconut trees and chickens. “I saw four elephants just yesterday,” he said, adding that he hopes never to set foot in a Walmart again. -CNBC

That said, it hasn't all been smooth sailing - including finding acceptable loos to poo in. "Some toilets here are holes in the ground you squat over," said Hagg, who added that he recently ate spoiled goat meat at a local restaurant, landing him in the emergency room. Still, he insists "I have a higher standard of living in a Third World country than I would in America, because of my student loans."

"If you’re not making a living wage, $20,000 in debt is devastating," said Haag, who struggled to come up with the $300 a month he owed upon graduating from the University of Northern Colorado in 2011. Hagg's first postgraduate job was working on-again, off-again hours unloading trucks and constructing toy rockets on an assembly line.

While there is no official data on how many people have fled the United States to get out of student debt, there's ample evidence that people are heading for the hills based on Reddit posts, Facebook groups, and financial advice doled out on various websites.

"It may be an issue we see an uptick in if the trends keep up," said Barmak Nassirian, director of federal relations at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

With outstanding student debt projected to exceed $2 billion by 2022, the average graduate owes around $30,000, up from an inflation-adjusted $16,000 in the 1990s. As CNBC notes, salaries for those with new bachelor degrees have remained virtually flat over the last several decades.

In Hagg's case, after his stints at the toy factory and loading trucks, he went back to school to pursue a master's degree in comparative literature at the University of Colorado Boulder, after which he tried his hand at being a low-paid adjunct professor.

Haag had some hope restored when he landed full-time work as a medical courier in Denver, delivering urine and blood samples to hospitals. However, he was disappointed to find that he brought home just $1,700 a month. He had little money left over after he paid his student loan bill. He couldn’t afford an apartment in the city, where rents have been rising sharply. He lived with his mother and rarely went out with friends.

“I couldn’t make the math work in America,” Haag said. -CNBC

Last year, Hagg married an Indian citizen who teaches at a local college. He is currently living on a five-year spousal visa.

Not so fast?

While the Department of Education typically can't garnish someone's wages if they work for a company outside of the United States, they can take up to 15% of Social Security benefits when they start collecting.

"The loans do not disappear when you become an expat," said student loan expert Mark Kantrowitz.

Also of note, in February of 2018 the IRS began alerting the US State Department of extremely delinquent debtors, while the State Department has warned those with "seriously delinquent tax debt" that their passports may be revoked.

Other tales of bailing out

39-year-old Chad Albright graduated from Millersville University in Pennsylvania in 2007 after studying communications and history, and somehow couldn't find a job.

"I went to interview after interview after interview," said Albright.

Still, he had $30,000 in student loans and was soon faced with a monthly bill of around $400. Unable to support himself, he moved in with his parents in Lancaster and worked as a pizza deliveryman. “There was anger,” Albright said. “I couldn’t believe I couldn’t find a job in America.”

He fell behind on his student loans and feared the Education Department would garnish his wages.

Albright’s credit score tanked as a result of his repayment troubles, making it difficult for him to buy a car and to land certain jobs, since some employers now pull credit reports. “I feel that college ruined my life,” Albright said.

Seeing no future for himself in the United States, he decided to move to China in 2011. In the city of Zhongshan, he discovered he loved teaching students English. Unlike when he was delivering greasy boxes of pizza, he found his work meaningful and fulfilling. -CNBC

A few years after moving to China to earn $1,000 a month, Albright moved to Ukraine, where he is now a permanent resident. He has taught in Kiev and now Odessa, a port city on the Black Sea.

"I am much happier in Ukraine," says Albright, who has no plans to return to the United States and hasn't checked his student loan account in almost eight years.

Another student-loan escapee, Katrina Williams, couldn't find a job after graduating from the University of South Alabama in 2013 with a $700 per month loan bill.

"I had to take whatever I could so I could pay on the loans," said Williams, who took on jobs as a Starbucks Barista, a substitute teacher, a USPS delivery woman, and a Sears call center employee.

"I was working every day," said Williams. "I had enough money left over to put gas in the car."

Williams had a friend who had moved to Japan, and the idea of leaving the United States grew on her. In 2015, she moved to Chiba, also to teach English to students. “I love my work,” she said. Her job sponsors her visa.

She has her own apartment now and doesn’t have to work seven days a week anymore. Yet Williams misses her relationships back home; she hasn’t been able to make many friends in Japan.

She thinks about returning to the U.S., but knows she will be welcomed back by wage garnishments and endless calls from collection agencies. Her student debt has ballooned to well over $100,000.

“I wish I could come back to America and not be scared,” she said. -CNBC

According to Nassirian, there are far more reasonable ways of dealing with student debt - including entering into the government's income-based repayment plans.

At the end of the day, perhaps Student Loan Justice founder Alan Collinge has a point when he said that "Any rational person who learns that people are fleeing the country as a result of their student loan debt will conclude that something has gone horribly awry with this lending system."

***

MailOnline

'Collapse of a city that's lost control': Shocking new pictures from downtown LA capture the huge problem it faces with trash and rats amid fear of typhoid fever outbreak among LAPD

  • A decision to not cap property that homeless people can keep on Skid Row was announced last Wednesday

  • It sparked fury among some who say it will 'only perpetuate the public health crisis that already exists' there

  • Images from the downtown area show trash piling up as workers struggle to keep the area sanitized

  • Rows and rows of tents line the sidewalks of Skid Row in the sprawling 50-block area, home to around 4,200

  • On Thursday it was revealed a Los Angeles police detective has been diagnosed with typhoid fever

  • At least five other officers are also showing symptoms and their division polices downtown LA

  • Dustin DeRollo, a union spokesman, said cops who patrol Skid Row 'walk through the feces, urine and trash'

  • In an op ed for The LA Times reporter Steve Lopez called it 'the collapse of a city that's lost control'

By LAUREN FRUEN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and ASSOCIATED PRESS

PUBLISHED: 07:03, 2 June 2019 | UPDATED: 18:32, 2 June 2019

Belongings of the homeless crowd a downtown Los Angeles sidewalk in Skid Row. The city of Los Angeles on May 29 agreed to allow homeless people there to keep their property and not have it seized, providing the items are not bulky or hazardous

Article

***

lifehacker

Owning a Home Costs Way More Than Just the Mortgage

Lisa Rowan

May 30, 2019

Photo: Tom Thain (Unsplash)

The hidden costs of homebuying aren’t secrets, per se—they’re expenses that are hard to predict if you’re in the process of shopping for a home.

Spectora, a home inspection software service, dug into homeownership costs in the American Housing Survey, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Census Bureau conduct every two years.

The company identified key hidden costs of homeownership in the metropolitan areas with the largest populations, based on the survey’s responses from more than 45,000 housing units in those areas. While the AHS surveys all types of housing units (apartments, houses, etc.), some of the expenses reported tend to be unique to homeowners.

Here are some of the monthly median costs you’ll want to have on your radar:

Utilities

National median: $361 per month
Highest median: Boston, $439 per month
Lowest median: San Francisco, $246 per month

Utilities included water, gas, electricity, fuel oil, other fuel (solar, wind), and trash collection. It’s no surprise that it can get expensive to heat a home during a Boston or New York winter, but not all utility costs are obvious. Places like Miami, Dallas, and Phoenix saw higher trash collection costs.

If you’re trying to get an idea of utility costs in an area beyond the most crowded metro areas, Bankrate’s cost of living calculator is an endless feast of various costs.

Homeowner association fees

National median: $62 per month
Highest median: New York City, $358 per month
Lowest median: Detroit, $25 per month

If you’re considering buying a home in a building or neighborhood that has a homeowner association to maintain it, this is a good time to remind you that these median amounts are the midpoint for what people reported paying. These fees aren’t tax deductible, although some lawmakers have tried to change that.

Property taxes

National median: $200 per month
Highest median: New York City, $600 per month
Lowest median: Atlanta, $150 per month

This is a category where your likelihood of reducing your cost is slim unless you’re considering switching cities.

Home insurance premiums

National median: $67 per month
Highest median: Miami, $119 per month
Lowest median: Phoenix, $58 per month

If you’re going to buy the home, you’ll need have cash set aside to buy the insurance. Sorry, Miami, it’s tough being in the hurricane zone.

Spectora threw in driving costs to determine a total median monthly cost for “hidden” homeownership items. I don’t agree with the inclusion of driving costs, because driving is far from unique to homeownership. If you’re buying a home in the metro area where you rent, your transportation methods and associated costs are likely to stay in a similar range.

You might say, “But I rent and I pay utilities! Homeownership be damned!” and I don’t doubt it, but there are so many variables for what utilities you might be on the hook for when you rent. Compare that to homeownership, when you are absolutely on the hook for all those utilities.

If the national median for additional homeownership costs is $875 per month based on this report, then you can use that as a target for your budget beyond your mortgage payment. If you plan to buy in one of the more expensive locations, plan accordingly.

***

FOX NEWS

Billionaire's luxury superyacht slips from cargo ship, gets lost at sea

By Elizabeth Llorente | Fox News

June 2, 2019

MY Song, which was built in 2016, was being transported to Ibiza to take part in the Logo Piana Superyacht Regatta, which is running in Porto Cervo from June 3 to June 6, when it broke loose over the weekend. (Baltic Yachts)

The billionaire owner of a 130-foot yacht, named MY Song, is singing the blues after his vessel got lost at sea when it fell off a cargo ship.

The $38 million superyacht, which was on the last leg of a journey that began in the Caribbean, was not secured correctly by the crew, according to the company that transported her, when it fell overboard last Saturday.

The owner is Italian billionaire Pier Luigi Loro Piana, who is heir to a luxury clothing company. Forbes magazine puts his net worth at $1.6 billion.

"For anyone who loves the sea, his boat is like a second home, and it is as if my home has burnt down," Piana, 67, told Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

MY Song, which was built in 2016, was being transported to Ibiza to take part in the Logo Piana Superyacht Regatta, which is running in Porto Cervo from June 3 to June 6, when it broke loose over the weekend. MY Song won last year.

The yacht has since been located, with salvagers now working to prepare her for tow.

The head of Peters & May, the company that handles MY Song’s transporting, said in a statement to the press: “Upon receipt of the news Peters & May instructed the captain of the MV Brattinsborg to attempt salvage whilst 3rd party salvors were appointed."

“The vessel maintained visual contact with My Song until the air and sea search was initiated. As of 0900hr BST on 28th May 2019 the salvage attempts are still ongoing,” David Holley said.

“A full investigation into the cause of the incident has been launched,” he continued. “However the primary assessment is that the yacht’s cradle (owned and provided by the yacht, warrantied by the yacht for sea transport and assembled by the yacht’s crew) collapsed during the voyage from Palma to Genoa and subsequently resulted in the loss of MY Song overboard. I will add that this is the initial assessment and is subject to confirmation in due course.”

On social media, yachting organizations and publications lamented the misfortune that befell MY Song, a star in the regatta and luxury yacht worlds. Its past honors include Best Yacht at the World Superyacht Awards.

Gcaptain.com noted that besides being an award-winning performer in competitions, MY Song was a jewel in luxuriating circles: “The interior accommodation is for six to eight guests including the owner, the focal point being a spectacular deck saloon with hull and superstructure ports, plus skylights providing panoramic outboard views.”

***

THE EPOCH TIMES

Secrets of Medieval Castles: Why Castle Stairwells Are Built Clockwise–There’s a Very Important Reason

BY MICHAEL WING

May 30, 2019 Updated: June 1, 2019

Medieval castles were the central institutions of political power in the middle ages (a period of roughly 1,000 years between the 5th and 15th centuries), no less symbolic than the White House of modern-day America. The fascinating history of castles takes us right back to the roots of Western civilization.

The medieval world was structured much differently than in today’s nation states. Kings, lords, and knights ruled over lands, rented and farmed by peasants, who payed taxes in return for protection.

Rulers often lived in castles that would serve both as dwellings and fortifications from enemies. Effective defensive structures evolved over the centuries, from fenced, wooden forts atop a hill, surrounded by a moat and earthworks, to elaborate stone-walled structures consisting of concentric defenses: earthworks, moat, outer and inner walls, defensive fortifications, gates, keep, and much more.

Every detail of the structure was fine-tuned to provide the most effective defense against an invading army, maximizing advantages for the defenders and posing a multiplicity of dangers for attackers.

Yet, such intricacies and details are some of the most fascinating parts of these architectural monuments to our heritage. Outdated though they may be, they reveal insight into how mankind once fit into a world much different from our own today.

Here are just a few examples of such architectural aspects of medieval castles:

The Moat

Essential to castle fortifications, the moat consists of an artificially dug ditch that is then filled with water. In addition to making it harder for armies and siege machines to reach the walls, the moat’s primary function was to prevent attackers from digging tunnels under the castle walls. The purpose of that would be to undermine the wall’s foundation and have part of it collapse. This would allow enemies to breach an opening. With the moat in place, any attempts at excavation would be thwarted by water pouring in.

The natural lay of the land was a factor when choosing the site of a castle, and the placement of a moat would have played into that decision. The dirt and rock excavated during construction of the moat could be used to create a mound in the center upon which the castle would be built. The moat depth needed to be no more than a half-meter in order to impede attackers, and moats were sometimes studded with stakes to make them even more difficult to cross.

Curtain Walls and Keep

Stone walls presented a formidable defense against an attacking army. Like other aspects of castles, they evolved over the course of centuries. They are typically around 2.5 meters in thickness, sometimes housing passageways through them. And they consist of an exterior of dressed stone filled with a rubble and mortar core.

Castle walls are built on a foundation wider than the wall, consisting of rammed stone and rubble, or atop piles of oakwood driven into the soil, alternately. They were sometimes built upon a sloped plinth, which would make scaling more difficult. This eventually evolved into an angled, stone “curtain” at the base of the wall. This had an added advantage of causing rocks thrown from above to bounce toward the attacker in unpredictable directions.

Battlements atop walls, facing outward, allowed archers to take cover and fire at the enemy through narrow slits. There are no battlements on the inner side of the wall, as they could then be used by the enemy to fire inward, should the wall be breached. They would thus be left exposed to the subsequent stage of defense.

As castle designs evolved, a second, inner wall was added, providing yet another layer of defense. The inner wall was built higher than the outer wall, making the enemy even more vulnerable should they gain access. Sometimes there were underground tunnels connecting both walls, which would allow defenders an escape route, or even a sally port to cut the enemy off from behind.

A tower keep was the last place of defense in some castles. It was also the strongest building, consisting of thicker walls and a fortified entrance. As keeps were expensive to build, they were gradually replaced by larger, round towers along the castle wall.

Gates

Entrances present a logical target for an attacker, and that is why castles evolved, gradually placing their heaviest fortifications at these posts. Gates eventually came to be considered strong points rather than weak points. By the end of the 12th century, gatehouses consisted of two towers on either side of a recessed entrance. A heavy wooden door plus a metal and wood portcullis protected the gateway. Often, a drawbridge between the gatehouse and moat could be lifted with chains preventing easy access.

Above the gateway, fortifications include “murder holes” through which defenders could drop rocks, boiling water, or searing hot oil on attackers from above. They would also be able to douse any fires set upon the gates themselves.

Stairwells

Even minute details of castles are exploited to render every strategic advantage for the defender. Round spiral staircases of castles conspicuously all travel in a clockwise direction. Yet, there is a strategic reason for this: Assuming an attack will advance from below, a clockwise stairwell will position the attacker’s right hand (their sword hand) on the inside of the spiral, making swinging their weapon far more difficult. Meanwhile, defenders’ sword hands would be on the outside of the spiral, allowing freer use of their weapons and more protection.

Latrines

No detail was neglected in the defenses of castles, including using the washroom. Toilets were devised to be as simple as possible: very often no more than simple wooden benches with a hole in it; positioned on top of the walls, waste would fall directly into the moat outside. Urinals were also set into some tower walls so that defenders would not have to leave their posts for long when nature called.

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Almondtree Productions

O God, hearken to my petition; attend to my prayer. From the ends of the earth have I cried to thee, when my heart was in trouble: thou liftedst me up on a rock thou didst guide me: because thou wert my hope, a tower of strength from the face of the enemy.
(Psalm 61:1-3)