Uh Oh: Police Shoot And Kill Another Young Black Male In The St. Louis Area

crime criminal murder reprint blood effect finger - Public DomainOn Tuesday, police in north St. Louis shot and killed a 23-year-old African-American male that was suspected of robbing a convenience store.  It is being reported that he was brandishing a knife and kept coming toward the police even after they ordered him to stop and drop the knife multiple times.  So it sounds like the police may have been justified in shooting this suspect, but is that really going to matter?  Within moments of the shooting, there were reports that crowds were already gathering at the scene.  Needless to say, this could inflame the riots that have been going on for more than a week in nearby Ferguson.  The protesters over in Ferguson aren’t going to care if the police followed proper protocol or not.  All they are going to care about is the fact that the police have shot and killed another young black male.

This shooting happened just a few miles from where Michael Brown as shot and killed.  The following is how CNN described this latest shooting…

“The suspect, who right now is described as a 23-year-old African-American, was acting erratically — walking back and forth up and down the street,” St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson told reporters.

“As officers arrived, the suspect turned towards the officers and started to walk towards them clutching his waistband. He then pulled out a knife … and told the officers, ‘Shoot me now. Kill me now,'” the chief said.

Responding officers told the man, repeatedly, to stop and drop his knife, Dotson said. He continued to approach, coming within about four feet of one of the officers, Dotson said, adding that both officers then fired their weapons, striking the suspect.

According to the St. Louis police chief, the suspect was involved in an incident earlier in the day at a convenience store, where he is accused of walking out with two energy drinks and a package of pastries without paying.

If I was a police officer and someone continued to advance toward me with a knife after multiple warnings to stop, I would have done something to protect myself as well.

But at this point, no amount of logic or reason is going to matter to the protesters in Ferguson.  In fact, a “crowd of about 150″ rapidly gathered at the scene of this shooting and many in the crowd began to express fury at the police officers for what had just happened…

A crowd of about 150 gathered at the scene of the shooting in the moments after the incident, many of whom expressed anger that cops had not used other means of restraint.

“You don’t need to shoot if you’ve got a Taser and he’s got a knife,” one bystander said.

“You just kill, kill, kill because you got a gun,” another said. “They could’ve tased him. He was by himself.”

“They’re trying to shoot us down,” a third onlooker said.

Many in the crowd began chanting “Hands up, don’t shoot,” and “No justice, no peace,” the chants that have been a hallmark of the protests in Ferguson over the past 10 days.

Of course the big fear is that this incident is going to add fuel to the fire of the protesters over in Ferguson.  If you want to get an idea of the kind of rage and anger these protesters are feeling, just check out this YouTube video.  But please be aware that it contains some very strong language.

And as I pointed out the other day, all of this anger and frustration did not suddenly come out of a vacuum.  The truth is that anger, frustration and desperation have been steadily building in impoverished communities all over the nation for years.  The shooting of Michael Brown was just a “trigger event” which caused an eruption of rage in Ferguson.

In the end, it isn’t going to matter to the protesters in Ferguson whether today’s shooting was justified or not.  It isn’t even going to really matter whether the shooting of Michael Brown was justified or not.  The events of the past 10 days have unleashed a volcano of rage that is not going to be easily extinguished.

So we can probably expect to see even more violence, more rioting and more looting in Ferguson.  On some nights, the police in Ferguson have not even tried to stop the looting.  It would be very interesting to find out precisely who gave them those instructions.

As the eyes of the nation (and the entire world) are glued on the unrest in Ferguson, there is a significant amount of danger that these riots could start spreading to other cities.

If that happens, it will only be a matter of time before the federal government cracks down hard.

And if the federal government gets involved, that could be really, really bad.

A U.S. Army document that was released just a few months ago outlines how the Army would respond to “full scale riots” inside the United States.  As Paul Joseph Watson has detailed, this includes potentially using “lethal force” against “unarmed civilians”…

A document released by the U.S. Army details preparations for “full scale riots” within the United States during which troops may be forced to engage in a “lethal response” to deal with unruly crowds of demonstrators.

The appearance of the document amidst growing unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, with the National Guard now being called in to deal with the disorder, is an ominous coincidence.

The 132-page document, titled U.S. Army Techniques Publication 3-39.33: Civil Disturbances (PDF), was written in April 2014 and recently obtained by Public Intelligence.

The document makes it clear that the techniques detailed therein are to be applied both outside and inside the “continental United States (CONUS)” in the event of “unruly and violent crowds” where it is “necessary to quell riots and restore public order.”

The training manual outlines scenarios under which, “Civil unrest may range from simple, nonviolent protests that address specific issues, to events that turn into full-scale riots.”

The most shocking aspect of the document is the fact that it describes the deployment of a “lethal response” directed against “unarmed civilians,” including “sniper response” and “small arms direct fire.”

Under the heading “sniper response,” the document states, “Ensure that target leaders or troublemakers are targeted,” in addition to a passage which states, “Exploit the psychological effect of an attack.”

You can see the document for yourself right here.

The governor of Missouri has already called in the National Guard.

If that fails, we could potentially see the Obama administration bring in the U.S. military.

Let us hope and pray that does not happen.

Let us hope and pray for peace in Ferguson.

Unfortunately, I am fully convinced that this is just the very start of the chaos that is coming to the streets of America in the years ahead.

Lock Your Doors And Prepare To Defend Your Family

Do you think that is an alarmist headline?  Well, I am not the one saying this.  Law enforcement authorities all over the country are telling citizens that they can no longer deal with all the crime and that people need to lock their doors and prepare to defend their families.  Just recently, the city attorney of San Bernardino, California told citizens to “lock their doors and load their guns” because there is not enough money to pay for adequate police protection any longer.  The murder rate in San Bernardino is up 50 percent this year, but the city is dealing with bankruptcy and has been forced to lay off 80 police officers.  But San Bernardino is not the only city dealing with this kind of a thing.  In Oakland, burglaries are up 43 percent so far this year, and to say that there is a “crime wave” going on in Oakland would be a massive understatement.  If you can believe it, in Oakland “more than 11,000 homes, cars or businesses have been broken into so far this year – translating to about 33 burglaries a day.”  Sadly, there simply are not enough police to keep up with it all.  Due to budget cuts, it is being projected that by February the size of the police force in Oakland will be about 25 percent smaller than it was back in 2008.  But what is happening in Detroit is perhaps even more frightening.  Today there are about 1,000 fewer police officers in Detroit than there was a decade ago.  But crime just continues to rise.  So now even the police are telling people to “enter Detroit at your own risk“.  With very little police protection, an increasing number of citizens are taking matters into their own hands.  As I noted in a previous article, justifiable homicide in the city of Detroit increased by 79 percent in 2011, and the rate of self-defense killings in Detroit is approximately 2200 percent above the national average.  But don’t laugh at what is happening in cities like San Bernardino, Oakland and Detroit.  What is happening in those cities will be coming to your community soon enough.

From coast to coast, criminals are becoming increasingly bold and increasingly desperate.  My sister lives near a large city in the middle part of the country, and a house across the street from the one her family just moved into was recently vandalized.  The criminals took all of the exposed copper pipe and copper wire that could be accessed easily.

Other criminals have become very focused on gold because it has soared in value and it is easy to resell.  For example, there have been more than 250 gold chain robberies in Stockton, California just since the month of April.  According to the CBS News affiliate in Sacramento, criminals are just ripping these chains right off of the necks of unsuspecting citizens, and many of the victims that have tried to resist have ended up getting hurt.  Normally the criminals sell off the jewelry within 24 hours, so solving these crimes is a real challenge…

Most victims of the robberies are female (65 percent), and 44 percent of victims are age 50 or older, the data showed. The most common time of day for the crimes were between 12 and 5 p.m., though this only accounts for about a third of the crime.

Parino said robbers took even police by surprise initially.

“When [criminals] do these crimes, they normally get rid of the items within 24 hours,” he said.

That’s why police are now checking up on secondhand stores and pawn shops on a weekly basis.

Many dismiss reports such as these as “anomalies”, but how many “anomalies” do we need before we finally admit that we have a widespread problem in our society?

Personally, there are many major U.S. cities that I would not want to be living right in the middle of right now.

Just take a look at Chicago.  It has become one of the deadliest major cities on the entire globe.  In recent years we have seen massive cuts to the police budget coupled with a dramatic increase in gang activity in Chicago.

The murder rate in Chicago is way up this year and the police force is massively outnumbered.

As I have written about previously, there are only about 200 police officers assigned to Chicago’s Gang Enforcement Unit.  It is their job to handle the estimated 100,000 gang members living in the city.

How would you like to be outnumbered 100,000 to 200?

When things really hit the fan, Chicago is going to be a complete and utter nightmare.

And sometimes we get a peek into how people will behave when things break down.  Just look at what happened during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

If you can believe it, some criminals actually took advantage of the Thanksgiving holiday to loot homes in the Breezy Point neighborhood of Queens.  That was the neighborhood where approximately 100 homes burned down.  The suffering of the residents of that neighborhood made headlines all over the nation.  But that has not stopped criminals from moving in and taking advantage of their vulnerability…

Cops told the victims burglaries are on the rise in Breezy Point.

There were 14 home break-ins from Nov. 12 to Nov. 18, compared with none a year before.

And in the 28 days before that, there were 48 burglaries. Only four break-ins were reported in that time period the year before.

In the days after Sandy, some of the hardest-hit areas were plagued with store looting, home burglaries, street muggings and other crimes.

There are some very sick people out there.  These days you simply do not know who you can trust.  The person you meet on the street may be perfectly fine or they may be a total sicko.  It is so hard to tell.  But without a doubt there are a lot of sickos out there.  Just check out what authorities in Pennsylvania found recently

Animal welfare workers say 11 puppies were found dead and skinned near an eastern Pennsylvania park.

Sadly, authorities in that area had come across another similar incident recently…

The discovery is second disturbing incident in the county in less than a week. About 20 miles away in Lynn Township police say a dog was discovered skinned and cooked.

Who would do such things?

What in the world is happening to this country?

Things are changing, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.  As conditions shift, we are all going to have to carefully evaluate what is necessary to protect our families.  Don’t ignore all of the warning signs.  Sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that everything is going to be okay is not going to help anything.

So what do all of you think about all of this?  Please feel free to post a comment with your opinion below…

Police: “Enter Detroit At Your Own Risk”

If you plan on visiting Detroit any time soon, the police have a message for you: “Enter Detroit at your own risk”.  That ominous message was actually emblazoned across the top of a flyer that the Detroit Police Officer Association was passing out prior to a rally on Saturday.  The flyer pointed out that Detroit is the most violent city in the nation and that more homicides are committed in Detroit than anywhere else.  Meanwhile, the number of police officers in Detroit has been steadily decreasing.  There are more murders in Detroit today than there were a decade ago, but the number of police officers in the city has decreased by about 1,000 over that time period.  The remaining police officers are overworked and incredibly frustrated.  But Detroit is far from alone.  All over the nation there are major cities that are reporting a spike in crime even as police budgets are being slashed.  Sadly, this is just the beginning.  As the economy gets even worse, budget cuts will become even more severe and crime will become an even bigger problem.

In many areas of the country, police have become little more than report takers.  If you report a crime that is not considered “high priority”, you will be lucky to get an officer to come out a few hours later to fill out a report.

In cities such as Detroit, criminals are becoming much bolder and are openly mocking the police.  For example, according to a recent WND article, one gang has literally taken over a convenience store in Detroit and the police literally seem powerless to do anything about it….

Even the old-timers in Detroit never have seen anything like this: A mob of 40 black people moved into a convenience store and will not leave.

They say they now own it. They eat. Smoke. Cuss. Threaten. Spit. Rob. Sell drugs. All on video.

Police, ministers, neighbors, the store owner and just about everyone else seems powerless to stop them.

“It’s a Bad Crew gas station,” said one of the mob to the local Fox affiliate. “If you don’t know what that is, I can’t even tell you.”

The owner calls police, but nothing happens. The police “come here and then they leave. Two minutes later they (the mob) are back.”

What in the world has happened to Detroit?

Once upon a time it was one of the greatest cities in the entire world.

Now it has become a war zone.

As I wrote about a while back, justifiable homicide in the city of Detroit rose by 79 percent in 2011, and the rate of self-defense killings in Detroit is now about 2200 percent above the national average.

But like I said, Detroit is far from alone.

In some ways, what is happening in Chicago is even more frightening.

Many areas of Chicago have essentially been completely taken over by the gangs.  Violent crime has dramatically increased in Chicago so far this year, and nobody seems to know what to do about it.

A USA Today article from last week entitled “Murders in Chicago: What can stop the bloodbath?” painted a very grim picture about what is going on in the city right now….

Driven by gangs, drugs and guns, the bloodshed in President Obama’s adopted hometown has resulted in a body count that exceeds the 312 murders this year in New York and 212 in Los Angeles, cities with populations dwarfing that of the Windy City. The toll here is up 25% from 2011: 391 through Sept. 23.

CBS News reporter Walter Jacobson recently sat down with some young gang members in Chicago and asked them some direct questions.  Many of the answers that he got to those questions were quite frightening….

“There’s no solution to the violence,” one gang member tells him. “Killing, killing is the solution.”

When Jacobson asked them how they survive, the following was one of the responses that he received….

“Rob, steal and kill. That’s the only way. We didn’t grow up in Beverly Hills. We don’t get it handed to us”

But what are the police supposed to do about it?

As I noted in another article, there are approximately 200 police officers assigned to Chicago’s Gang Enforcement Unit to deal with an estimated 100,000 gang members.

How would you like to be outnumbered 500 to 1?

And the number of gang members in Chicago grows with each passing day.

The violence in Chicago has gotten so bad that it is making headlines all over the globe.  For example, the following is a brief excerpt from an article about the violence in Chicago that appeared in the Telegraph….

“This is a block-to-block war here, a different dynasty on every street,” said a dreadlocked young man heavily inked in gang tattoos who calls himself “Killer”.

“All the black brothers just want to get rich, but we got no jobs and no hope. We want the violence to stop but you ain’t safe if you ain’t got your pistol with you. Too many friends, too many men are being killed. We don’t even cry at funerals no -more. Nobody expects to live past 21 here.”

When young people lose all hope for a better future they become very desperate.

And very desperate people are capable of just about anything.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

The other day we learned that the number of Americans on food stamps has hit another brand new record high.

Nearly 47 million Americans are on food stamps at this point, and overall more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government.

But what happens someday if the federal government is forced to cut back significantly on those programs or if food prices increase so much that people can’t buy nearly enough food to eat with their food stamps?

When people get really hungry they will do some crazy things.

But the mayor of Costa Mesa, California says that he has an answer to this problem.  He has proposed reducing the homeless population of Costa Mesa by putting all soup kitchens in the city out of business….

The mayor of Costa Mesa proposed to get rid of soup kitchens to deal with the area’s homeless problem at a city council meeting on Tuesday.

“My belief is that if we manage to put the soup kitchen out of business that will go a long way to addressing the attractiveness in our city that’s creating a huge negative impact,” Eric Bever said.

Unfortunately, we are going to see a lot more of this kind of thing in the years ahead.  The number of people that are really hurting is going to continue to increase, and the efforts to remove them from “respectable” areas is going to become more forceful.

Already we have seen feeding the homeless being banned in major cities all over the country.

But no rules, regulations or laws are going to be able to prevent what is coming in the years ahead.  I believe that eventually we are going to see “flash mobs” of poor Americans storm into wealthy neighborhoods and take whatever they want.

Those doing the looting will justify it by saying that they are just taking from the rich and giving to the poor like “‘Robin Hood” did, but most other Americans will see it as more evidence that society is breaking down.

And without a doubt our society is starting to break down.  What we are seeing in Detroit and Chicago right now is just the tip of the iceberg.

Things are going to become much, much worse.

20 Things We Can Learn About The Future Of America From The Death Of Detroit

Do you want to know what the future of America is going to look like?  Just check out what is happening to Detroit.  The city of Detroit was once one of the greatest industrial cities in the history of the world, but today it is a rotting, decaying, post-apocalyptic hellhole.  Nearly half the men are unemployed, nearly half the population is functionally illiterate, more than half of the children are living in poverty and the city government is drowning in debt.  As economic conditions have gotten worse, crime has absolutely exploded.  Every single night in Detroit there are frightening confrontations between desperate criminals and exasperated homeowners.  Unfortunately, the police force in Detroit has been dramatically reduced in size.  When the police in Detroit are called, they often show up very late if they even show up at all. Detroit has become a lawless hellhole where violence is the currency of the streets.  If you want to survive in Detroit, you better be ready to fight because there are hordes of desperate criminals that are quite eager to take literally everything that you have got.  But don’t look down on Detroit too much, because what is happening in Detroit will soon be happening all over America.

The following are 20 things we can learn about the future of America from the death of Detroit….

#1 People don’t want to live where the stench of failure and decay is constantly in the air.  Back in the 1950s, Detroit was a teeming metropolis of approximately 2 million people.  According to the 2010 census, only 713,000 people live in Detroit today.  The U.S. Census Bureau says that Detroit lost a resident every 22 minutes during the first decade of this century.

#2 When the economy falls apart, desperate people will do desperate things and many homeowners will fight back.  Justifiable homicide in Detroit rose by a staggering 79 percent during 2011.

#3 In major cities where people are scrambling just to survive, any confrontation can quickly escalate into a life or death affair.  The rate of self-defense killings in Detroit is currently 2200% above the national average.

#4 When there is not enough money to go around, a lot of local governments will choose to cut back on police protection.  Ten years ago, there were approximately 5,000 police for the city of Detroit.  Today, there are less than 3,000.

#5 The essential social services that you are enjoying today will not always be there in the future.  Officials in Detroit recently announced that due to budget constraints, all police stations will be closed to the public for 16 hours a day.

#6 Economic decay is a breeding ground for chaos and violence.  Last Friday and Saturday, a total of nine shootings were reported in the city of Detroit.

#7 More Americans than ever are realizing the benefits of self-defense.  The following is what 73-year-old Julia Brown recently told the Daily….

The last time Brown, 73, called the Detroit police, they didn’t show up until the next day. So she applied for a permit to carry a handgun and says she’s prepared to use it against the young thugs who have taken over her neighborhood, burglarizing entire blocks, opening fire at will and terrorizing the elderly with impunity.

#8 When crime gets go bad that the police are powerless to stop it, vigilante groups begin to form….

In fact, crime has gotten so bad and the citizens are so frustrated by the lack of police assistance that they have resorted to forming their own organizations to fight back.  One group, known as “Detroit 300”, was formed after a 90-year-old woman on Detroit’s northwest side was brutally raped in August.

#9 When criminals become desperate, they will steal literally anything that is not bolted down.  In Detroit today, thieves have stripped so much copper wiring out of the street lights that half of all the lights in some neighborhoods no longer work.

#10 As things fall apart, eventually a time comes when it is not even safe to drive down the road in the middle of the day.  100 bus drivers in Detroit recently refused to drive their routes out of fear of being attacked on the streets.  The head of the bus drivers union, Henry Gaffney, said that the drivers were literally “scared for their lives“….

“Our drivers are scared, they’re scared for their lives. This has been an ongoing situation about security. I think yesterday kind of just topped it off, when one of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police almost 30 minutes to get there, in downtown Detroit,” said Gaffney.

#11 One of the clearest signs of decline in America is the state of our education system.  Only 25 percent of all students in Detroit end up graduating from high school.  Many other major cities will soon have graduation rates similar to Detroit.

#12 When local governments run out of money they are forced to make tough choices.  After already shutting down dozens of schools, officials in Detroit have announced plans to close down 16 more schools.

#13 A growing percentage of Americans cannot even read or write.  This is a very frightening indication of what the future of America could look like.  According to one stunning report, 47 percent of all people living in the city of Detroit are functionally illiterate.

#14 Sadly, child poverty is absolutely exploding all over the United States.  Today, 53.6 percent of all children that live in Detroit are living below the poverty line.

#15 The employment situation in America is a lot worse than the government is telling us.  An analysis of census figures found that 48.5% of all men living in Detroit from age 20 to age 64 did not have a job in 2008.

#16 When a major city becomes a hellhole, home prices fall like a rock.  The median price of a home in Detroit is now just $6000.

#17 When crime and looting become commonplace, homes in an area can become absolutely worthless.  Some homes in Detroit have been sold for a single dollar.

#18 When depression-like conditions exist in an area for a number of years, large numbers of people will move on to greener pastures.  As of a few years ago, there were more than 40,000 vacant properties in the city of Detroit.

#19 Just because we have a high standard of living today does not mean that will always be the case.  Detroit is just a rotting shell of what it once was, and what is happening to Detroit will happen to much of the rest of America very soon.  The following is what one British reporter found during his visit to Detroit….

Much of Detroit is horribly dangerous for its own residents, who in many cases only stay because they have nowhere else to go. Property crime is double the American average, violent crime triple. The isolated, peeling homes, the flooded roads, the clunky, rusted old cars and the neglected front yards amid trees and groin-high grassland make you think you are in rural Alabama, not in one of the greatest industrial cities that ever existed.

#20 When government finances collapse, politicians look for things to sell off and “privatize”.  Unfortunately, the Detroit city government is so broke that it is now considering selling off some of its most famous assets….

Now, the city of Detroit’s most venerable assets — from Belle Isle to the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel — could end up on the auction block as the city fights for its financial life.

Facing mounting debt and the prospect of a state-appointed emergency manager, the city is looking at all options to shed expenses and raise revenue. If city officials can’t come up with a viable budget plan, an emergency manager would have the power to sell assets as part of a financial takeover of Detroit.

But Detroit is not alone.

Lots of other cities all over America are flat broke and out of options.

For example, just check out what is happening in Scranton, Pennsylvania….

Mayor Christopher Doherty is blunt when asked about a court order forcing his Pennsylvania city to pay about $30 million in wages withheld from police and firefighters under a state-approved fiscal recovery plan.

“I don’t have the money,” said Doherty, 53. As for the chance of borrowing the cash, more than half of the city’s projected general-fund revenue, he added, “there’s no financial institution that’s going to give me $30 million to pay it.”

The U.S. economy never recovered from the last major financial crisis, and now another one is on the way.

As the economy crumbles, so will the fabric of our society.

The American people are terribly spoiled and they do not possess the character to handle depression-like conditions with grace and dignity.

In the years ahead, we are going to see rampant rioting and looting in our major cities.  The crime sprees that we will witness in future years will be absolutely unprecedented.

Things did not have to turn out this way, but unfortunately the consequences of decades of really bad decisions are starting to catch up with us.

So what do you think the future of America will look like?  Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below….

40 Hard Questions That The American People Should Be Asking Right Now

If you spend much time watching the mainstream news, then you know how incredibly vapid it can be.  It is amazing how they can spend so much time saying next to nothing.  There seems to be a huge reluctance to tackle the tough issues and the hard questions.  Perhaps I should be thankful for this, because if the mainstream media was doing their job properly, there would not be a need for the alternative media.  Once upon a time, the mainstream media had a virtual monopoly on the dissemination of news in the United States, but that has changed.  Thankfully, the Internet in the United States is free and open (at least for now) and people that are hungry for the truth can go searching for it.  Today, an increasing number of Americans want to understand why our economy is dying and why our national debt is skyrocketing.  An increasing number of Americans are deeply frustrated with what is going on in Washington D.C. and they are alarmed that we seem to get closer to becoming a totalitarian police state with each passing year.  People want real answers about our foreign policy, about our corrupt politicians, about our corrupt financial system, about our shocking moral decline and about the increasing instability that we are seeing all over the world, and they are not getting those answers from the mainstream media.

If the mainstream media will not do it, then those of us in the alternative media will be glad to tackle the tough issues.  The following are 40 hard questions that the American people should be asking right now….

#1 If Iran tries to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, what will that do to the price of oil and what will that do to the global economy?

#2 If Iran tries to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, will the United States respond by launching a military strike on Iran?

#3 Why is the Federal Reserve bailing out Europe?  And why are so few members of Congress objecting to this?

#4 The U.S. dollar has lost well over 95 percent of its value since the Federal Reserve was created,  the U.S. national debt is more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was created and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has a track record of incompetence that is absolutely mind blowing.  So what possible justification is there for allowing the Federal Reserve to continue to issue our currency and run our economy?

#5 Why does the euro keep dropping like a rock?  Is this a sign that Europe is heading for a major recession?

#6 Why are European banks parking record-setting amounts of cash at the European Central Bank?  Is this evidence that banks don’t want to lend to one another and that we are on the verge of a massive credit crunch?

#7 If the European financial system is going to be just fine, then why is the UK government preparing feverishly for the collapse of the euro?

#8 What did the head of the IMF mean when she recently said that we could soon see conditions “reminiscent of the 1930s depression“?

#9 How in the world can Mitt Romney say with a straight face that the individual health insurance mandate that he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts was based on “conservative principles”?  Wouldn’t that make the individual mandate in Obamacare “conservative” as well?

#10 If the one thing that almost everyone in the Republican Party seems to agree on is that Obamacare is bad, then why is the candidate that created the plan that much of Obamacare was based upon leading in so many of the polls?

#11 What did Mitt Romney mean when he stated that he wants “to eliminate some of the differences, repeal the bad, and keep the good” in Obamacare?

#12 If no Republican candidate is able to accumulate at least 50 percent of the delegates by the time the Republican convention rolls around, will that mean that the Republicans will have a brokered convention that will enable the Republican establishment to pick whoever they want as the nominee?

#13 Why are middle class families being taxed into oblivion while the big oil companies receive about $4.4 billion in specialized tax breaks a year from the federal government?

#14 Why have we allowed the “too big to fail” banks to become even larger?

#15 Why has the United States had a negative trade balance every single year since 1976?

#16 Back in 1970, 25 percent of all jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only 9 percent of all jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.  How in the world could we allow that to happen?

#17 If the United States has lost an average of 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, then why don’t our politicians do something about it?

#18 If you can believe it, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have permanently closed down since 2001.  So exactly what does that say about our economy?

#19 Why was the new Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall made in China?  Wasn’t there anyone in America that could make it?

#20 If low income jobs now account for 41 percent of all jobs in the United States, then how are we going to continue to have a vibrant middle class?

#21 Why do the poor just keep getting poorer in the United States today?

#22 How can the Obama administration be talking about an “economic recovery” when 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be “low income” or are living in poverty?

#23 Why has the number of new cars sold in the U.S. declined by about 50 percent since 1985?

#24 How can we say that we have a successful national energy policy when the average American household will spend a whopping $4,155 on gasoline by the end of this year?

#25 Why does it take gigantic mountains of money to get a college education in America today?  According to the Student Loan Debt Clock, total student loan debt in the United States will surpass the 1 trillion dollar mark in early 2012.  Isn’t there something very wrong about that?

#26 Why do about a third of all U.S. states allow borrowers who don’t pay their bills to be put in jail?

#27 If it costs tens of billions of dollars to take care of all of the illegal immigrants that are already in this country, why did the Obama administration go around Congress and grant “backdoor amnesty” to the vast majority of them?  Won’t that just encourage millions more to come in illegally?

#28 Why are gun sales setting new all-time records in America right now?

#29 Why are very elderly women being strip-searched by TSA agents at U.S. airports?  Does that really keep us any safer?

#30 The last words of Steve Jobs were “Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.”  What did he mean by that?

#31 How in the world did scientists in Europe decide that it was a good idea for them to create a new “killer bird flu” that is very easy to pass from human to human?

#32 If our founding fathers intended to set up a limited central government, then why does the federal government just continue to get bigger and bigger?

#33 Are we on the verge of an absolutely devastating retirement crisis?  On January 1st, 2011 the very first of the Baby Boomers started to reach the age of 65.  Now more than 10,000 Baby Boomers will be turning 65 every single day for the next two decades.  So where in the world are we going to get all the money we need to pay them the retirement benefits that we have promised them?

#34 If the federal government stopped all borrowing today and began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 440,000 years to pay off the U.S. national debt.  So does anyone out there actually still believe that the U.S. national debt will be paid off someday?

#35 If the U.S. economy is getting better, then why are an all-time record 46 million Americans now on food stamps?

#36 How can we say that we have the greatest economy on earth when we have a child poverty rate that is more than twice as high as France and one out of every four American children is on food stamps?

#37 Since 1964, the reelection rate for members of the U.S. House of Representatives has never fallen below 85 percent.  So are the American people really that stupid that they would keep sending the exact same Congress critters back to Washington D.C. over and over and over?

#38 What does it say about our society that nearly one-third of all Americans are arrested by the time they reach the age of 23?

#39 Why do so many of our politicians think that it is a good idea to allow the U.S. military to arrest American citizens on American soil and indefinitely detain them without a trial?

#40 A new bill being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives would give the U.S. government power to shut down any website that is determined to “engage in, enable or facilitate” copyright infringement.  Many believe that the language of the new law is so vague that it would allow the government to permanently shut down any website that even links very briefly to “infringing material”.  Prominent websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube would be constantly in danger of being given a “death penalty”.  The American people need to ask their members of Congress this question: Do you plan to vote for SOPA (The Stop Online Piracy Act)?  If the answer is yes, that is a clear indication that you should never cast a single vote for that member of Congress ever again.

So do you have answers to some of the questions posted above?

Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts below….