There Sure Is A Lot Of Buzz About A Potential Terror Attack On Christmas Day Or New Year’s Eve

2016 - Public DomainI have never seen more buzz about a potential terror attack during the holiday season than I am seeing right now.  Over the past couple of weeks, the mainstream media and the alternative media have both been full of headlines about the possibility of terrorism on Christmas Day or New Year’s Eve.  And personally, I have had numerous people contact me with their concerns or regarding something that they have heard from others.  In addition to threats from ISIS, there are many out there that are completely convinced that we could soon see a major false flag incident in the United States.  So are any of these rumors true?  Will we soon see a major terror incident in America?  I want to make it very clear that I do not know.  As an attorney, I have been trained to come to conclusions based on the evidence, and at this moment I do not have anything completely solid to report to you.  But I do believe that it is noteworthy that there is so much buzz about a potential terror attack that is coming in from so many different directions.

For example, earlier today a mainstream news report indicated that authorities had discovered a “credible threat” against New York City.  The phrase “credible threat” was later retracted, but it is a fact that NYPD Commissioner William Bratton did hold “an emergency meeting” on Tuesday to address the threat of terror…

Top NYPD brass including Commissioner William Bratton held an emergency meeting Tuesday to discuss the need for increased vigilance, sources said.

All New York City police officers received a bulletin Tuesday afternoon outlining the department’s tactical plan and warning officers to stay vigilant, according to sources. That internal memo mentioned social media being used as a tactic and that a possible attack could come without warning.

Expect to see increased police presence at iconic locations across multiple boroughs, including Times Square, St. Patrick’s Cathedral for Midnight Mass on Thursday, and Barclays Center in Brooklyn, marking the first time a threat has sparked a swell of police presence in a borough other than Manhattan.

In Germany, it is being reported that a former ISIS fighter is telling authorities that ISIS is planning “coordinated attacks across multiple European cities”

ISIS are threatening coordinated attacks across multiple European cities, a former militant who escaped from the terror group has revealed.

The former Islamic State fighter – called Harry S – recently escaped from the group in Syria and is now being questioned by the authorities in Germany.

He says, along with other fighters, he was asked if he would “bring jihad to their homeland”.

Could he be telling the truth?

You never know.  He might just be blowing a lot of hot air.  But after what recently took place in Paris and San Bernardino, we all need to be more diligent.

And without a doubt, it is quite probable that the next attack could be bigger than anything else that we have seen so far.  That same ex-ISIS fighter told the Germans that ISIS wants “something that happens everywhere at the same time”

Worryingly, as reported by Der Spiegel, he told police: “They want something that happens everywhere at the same time.

“All you need is to take a big knife, and go down to the streets and slighter every infidel you encounter.”

And there is some evidence that radical Islamists have been planning just such an attack inside the United States.  Just check out what authorities found when they recently raided the home of a 19-year-old jihadist in Pennsylvania

Thursday, The U.S. Department of Justice announced the arrest of 19-year-old Jalil Ibn Ameer Aziz, who lived in a home with his parents in the 1700 block of Fulton Street in Harrisburg.

According to an affidavit, Aziz was preparing to conduct or assist in an attack in the U.S. An investigation also revealed that Aziz attempted to aid ISIS supporters in traveling to Syria for the purpose of becoming ISIS fighters.

On November 27, investigators raided Aziz’s home and found five loaded M4-style high-capacity magazines, a modified kitchen knife, a thumb drive, medication and a balaclava inside a backpack Aziz’s kept inside a closet.

We also know that the San Bernardino shooters had accumulated quite an arsenal in their home as well.  Mike Adams of Natural News believes that this is yet more evidence that a “multi-city ISIS attack” was being planned…

I have reason to believe that a massive, multi-city ISIS attack will be unleashed across America in the near future.

Why do I believe this? Because the evidence points to the likelihood that the San Bernardino ISIS terrorists disobeyed orders and prematurely initiated their attack on a relatively small group. The twelve pipe bombs and thousands of rounds of ammunition found in their apartment point to the realization that they were preparing for something much larger.

If you’re a terrorist, you don’t build twelve pipe bombs and then leave them behind during your attack. You use them in large crowds, of course, to maximize the bloodshed and terror factor. The very existence of these pipe bombs — if indeed they weren’t planted by the feds — means that another, larger attack was in the planning stages and approaching activation.

Whether we see a major attack within the next couple of weeks or not, it is inevitable that the next one will happen at some point.  I think that the holidays are a flashpoint in particular because they have a great deal of symbolic meaning and because there are such large public gatherings of people around Christmas and on New Year’s Eve.

And the federal government recognizes this as well.  As Christmas draws closer, FEMA has been helping churches prepare for “active shooter incidents“, and the feds will be keeping a very close eye on New Year’s Eve celebrations in New York City and elsewhere.

Of course many Americans do not have much faith in the ability of the federal government to protect them.  In fact, there are some that are simply going to avoid any large public gatherings of people until after the holidays are over.

So are those individuals being paranoid or prudent?

Please feel free to tell us what you think by posting a comment below…

Add 2 More Attacks To The List As The Year End Explosion Of Islamic Terror Continues

Terror - Public DomainDoesn’t it seem like there is another Islamic terror attack somewhere in the world almost every day now?  Today, there was a throat slashing at a subway station in London, and three female suicide bombers carried out a devastating attack in Chad that killed at least 27 and injured at least 90.  Inspired by the success of ISIS, radical Islamists all over the planet are rising up and striking vulnerable targets.  According to Wikipedia, there have been dozens of terror attacks worldwide so far this year, and the recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino were some of the biggest news stories of 2015.  Unfortunately, I believe that this is just the beginning.  I am fully convinced that the seeds of terror that have been planted up until now will produce an increasingly bitter harvest as we head into 2016 and beyond.

The throat slashing that just happened in London is another in a series of seemingly random attacks that is creating fear all over Europe right now.  Reportedly, the attacker yelled “this is for Syria” as he struck at his victim…

A man was stabbed in the ticket hall at Leytonstone station this evening by another man who witnesses say shouted “This is for Syria” as he slashed his throat.

Another three are thought to have been injured.

The Met Police said its counter-terrorism command unit is now investigating the incident.

Police said they used a taser on the suspect as he threatened others with a knife, before they managed to arrest him.

An alternate account of this attack in the Guardian sounds even more gruesome…

One person, who claims to have witnessed the attack, took to social media to reveal details of the horror. Laurynas Godvisa said: “So as I was going to Leytonstone station was dressed to go to Christmas dinner with people from work.

“As I walked down I just saw a lot of people running but I ignored it and kept walking to get my train, but suddenly what I saw I couldn’t believe my eyes and what I saw was I guy with a knife and a dead guy on the floor.

“I was so scared I ran for my life. After good 10-15 police came and got the guy and arrested him.

“And as he was coming out this is what he said: ‘This is what happens when you **** with mother Syria all of your blood will be spilled.’”

On a daily basis, we all rely on the fact that the people we encounter in public are not going to try to kill us.

But what happens when attacks start happening regularly at soft targets such as schools, churches, subway stations, shopping malls and sporting events?

It isn’t going to take many mass casualty events in the western world before people really start freaking out.

In other areas of the world, we already see these sorts of mass casualty events on a regular basis.  And I am not just talking about the Middle East.  For example, just check out what happened earlier today in Africa

A deadly attack took the lives of at least 27 people in Africa. A local market on the island of Koulfoua, in Chad was struck, according to the BBC and AP, injuring at least 90.

A Chad police spokesman said three female suicide bombers carried out Saturday’s attack.

The Lake Chad region straddles the borders of Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria.

In Nigeria, Islamic terror has become a part of daily life.  It wasn’t always that way, but now Boko Haram is creating havoc all over the place.

Given enough time, the same thing would happen in the United States.  We have all seen what just happened in San Bernardino, and more radical Islamists are coming into this country all the time.  Sadly, the truth is that Sayed Farook and Tashfeen Malik are just the very small tip of a very large iceberg.

The mainstream media is keeping very quiet about the fact that Sayed Farook had been arguing with a 52-year-old pro-Israel Messianic Jewish Christian co-worker named Nicholas Thalasinos and had openly threatened to kill him.  A radical Muslim taking revenge on a conservative Christian because of what he believed doesn’t fit any of the “narratives” that the mainstream media is trying to push, and so that part of the story is being almost entirely ignored.  In fact, I just read an extremely long article on the attack by the Washington Post, and there was not a single mention of Thalasinos in the entire article.

But the mainstream media is telling us that Farook and Malik had both been radicalized, and it is being reported that Malik even went so far as to pledge her allegiance to ISIS.  The following comes from the Daily Mail

New details have emerged about the radicalization of a Pakistani woman who along with her American husband killed 14 people in San Bernardino California and pledged allegiance to ISIS.

Tashfeen Malik who moved to the US last year when she married Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, had spent most of her life in Saudi Arabia and relatives say she began to be radicalized in college.

Relatives of Malik in Pakistan, estranged from their wealthy family members who live in Saudi Arabia, said she used to wear Western-style clothing but later switched to more traditional garments such as a burka, which covers the the entire body.

These kinds of radicals are moving to America on a constant basis now, and Barack Obama wants to accelerate this process.

During recent television appearances and on a DVD that I made earlier this year, I went on the record with my prediction that a horrible wave of Islamic terrorism was coming to America.

Unfortunately, what we have seen so far is just a preview.

Eventually we are going to see attacks on soft targets that are going to kill hundreds or even thousands.

And as the terrorists see the panic and fear that they are able to create, it will just embolden them to try to launch even bigger and more destructive attacks.

If you don’t think that this can happen in America, just look at what is already happening around the rest of the world.  From 2013 to 2014, the number of people around the world killed by terrorism increased by 80 percent, and this year the plague of Islamic terror has gotten even worse.

Our world is becoming increasingly unstable, and our society is extremely vulnerable to various forms of terrorism.  And as we have seen with Sayed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, anyone that is willing to commit extremely destructive acts of violent terrorism will suddenly become world famous.  Terrorists desperately want to focus attention on themselves, and they love to create fear, and in this day and age it is very easy to do both.

I wish that I could be more optimistic, but as we head into 2016 I have a feeling that this outbreak of Islamic terror is only going to get worse.  This is going to fundamentally change all of our lives, and we need to be ready to deal with that reality.

World War III Draws Closer As Russia Accuses Turkey Of Being ‘Secret Allies’ With ISIS

2S19 Msta-S - Photo from Wikimedia CommonsAre Russia and Turkey on the verge of going to war?  In remarks that were almost entirely ignored by the western media, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the Turkish government of being “secret allies” with ISIS on Friday.  And on Monday, the Russians announced that they would be attempting to seal the border between Syria and Turkey, and we also learned that the Russians have been rushing heavy artillery units into Syria.  As tensions between Russia and Turkey continue to escalate, could we be in danger of seeing World War III erupt in the Middle East?

The Russians have clearly become convinced that Turkey is at the core of the problems in Syria, and that is why the Russians now plan to completely seal Syria’s border with Turkey.  Lavrov seems to think that this will represent a giant step toward defeating terror groups such as ISIS…

“We are convinced that by blocking the border we will in many respects solve the tasks to eradicate terrorism on Syrian soil.”

And the Russians are right about this.  ISIS militants use Turkey as a home base, and it has been documented that Turkey has been “training ISIS militants, funneling weapons to them, buying their oil, and tending to their wounded in Turkish hospitals”.

It was already common knowledge that Turkey was doing all of these things, but now the Russian government is publicly accusing the Turkish government of being “secret allies” with ISIS.  When Lavrov chose to use these words on Friday, he knew exactly what he was saying…

“We think it highly cynical when some of the countries speak about their commitment to the corresponding United Nations Security Council resolutions and declare themselves members of anti-terrorist coalitions but in reality are playing a game where terrorists are allocated the role of secret allies,” Lavrov stressed. “We have more and more questions about Ankara’s real plans and the degree of its readiness to exterminate terrorism, in particular in Syria, and its commitment to the normalization of the situation in Syria.”

So why would Turkey want to be allies with ISIS?

Well, first of all the Turkish government hates the Assad regime in Syria and would love to see it eliminated.

Secondly, ISIS has been selling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stolen oil in Turkey, and it has been alleged that the Turkish president’s own family is involved.

This was all supposed to be on the down low, but now the Russians are extremely angry and they are airing this dirty laundry for all the world to see.  On Monday, Vladimir Putin said that his government had “received additional information” that ISIS is shipping oil to Turkey on an “industrial scale”

Russia has received additional intelligence confirming that oil from deposits controlled by Islamic State is moved through Turkey on an industrial scale, said Vladimir Putin. President Recep Erdogan said he will resign if this is confirmed.

Moscow has grounds to suspect that the Su-24 was downed by Turkish jets on November 24 to secure illegal oil deliveries from Syria to Turkey, he said speaking on the sidelines of the climate change summit in Paris on Monday.

At the moment we have received additional information confirming that that oil from the deposits controlled by Islamic State militants enters Turkish territory on industrial scale,” he said.

We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire to ensure security of this oil’s delivery routes to ports where they are shipped in tankers,” Putin said.

And of course it isn’t just the Russians that are making these claims.

Mowaffak al Rubaie is a former member of the Iraqi Governing Council, and he says that sales of ISIS oil in Turkey have amounted to approximately 100 million dollars a month

In the last eight months ISIS has managed to sell … $800 million dollars worth of oil on the black market of Turkey. This is Iraqi oil and Syrian oil, carried by trucks from Iraq, from Syria through the borders to Turkey and sold …[at] less than 50 percent of the international oil price,” Mowaffak al Rubaie said in an interview with RT.

“Now this either get consumed inside, the crude is refined on Turkish territory by the Turkish refineries, and sold in the Turkish market. Or it goes to Jihan and then in the pipelines from Jihan to the Mediterranean and sold to the international market.”

“Money and dollars generated by selling Iraqi and Syrian oil on the Turkish black market  is like the oxygen supply to ISIS and it’s operation,” he added. “Once you cut the oxygen then ISIS will suffocate.”

You can’t sell 100 million dollars of stolen oil a month without the U.S. government knowing about it.

That means that Barack Obama has been fully aware of what has been going on, and he hasn’t told the American people the truth.

One of the reasons for his silence could be the fact that the president of Turkey’s own son has been involved.  Just check out what Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi said just the other day

“All of the oil was delivered to a company that belongs to the son of Recep [Tayyip] Erdogan. This is why Turkey became anxious when Russia began delivering airstrikes against the IS infrastructure and destroyed more than 500 trucks with oil already. This really got on Erdogan and his company’s nerves. They’re importing not only oil, but wheat and historic artefacts as well.”

For much more on all of this, please see my previous article entitled “The Biggest Obama Scandal? He Knows That Turkey Is Buying Oil From ISIS And He Is Doing Nothing To Stop It“.

Previously, the Russians had promised not to commit ground forces in Syria, but now that appears to be changing.

According to Debka, the Russians have already deployed three battalions of 2S19 Msta-S self-propelled howitzers at this point…

First, a body of three battalions of 2S19 Msta-S self-propelled howitzers was deployed at Khmeimin and has already started pounding rebel lines and command centers in the area. This heavy artillery system, capable of firing 152mm bombs at a rapid pace, is a veteran of Russia’s former campaigns against Islamic terrorist groups, especially in the Russian war against Islamic rebels in Chechnya in the 1990s.

In addition to the 2S19 Msta-S self-propelled howitzers, the Russians have also brought in TOS-1 220mm multiple rocket launchers

Another heavy weapons system that Russia brought to Syria in recent days is the TOS-1 220mm multiple rocket launcher. This system, which is mounted on the chassis of a T-72 tank, has been deployed near the embattled Syrian cities of Hama and Homs.

With each passing day, we seem to be inching ever closer to the start of World War III.

And it is important to keep in mind that if war does break out, Turkey is a member of NATO, and so the U.S. would be obligated by treaty to help defend the Turks.

So let’s keep a close eye on what is happening in the Middle East, because it could end up having tremendous implications for all of us.

Do You Remember When Black Friday Actually Still Mattered In America?

Bored - Public DomainOnce upon a time, “Black Friday” was a major event in the United States.  Yes, the mainstream media is still endlessly hyping it up, and major retailers are still rolling out their “incredible deals”, but it appears that most Americans are tiring of this particular gimmick.  Or perhaps it is just that U.S. consumers don’t have as much discretionary income as they once did.  As you will see below, retail traffic this Black Friday was “much, much slower” than anticipated.  And expectations were not great anyway – the number of shoppers was down last year, and it was being projected that there would be another decline in 2015.  Yes, there were still a few fights on Black Friday, but mostly the “holiday” was marked by giant piles of unsold merchandise sitting around collecting dust.  The inventory to sales ratio in the U.S. has surged to levels not seen since the last recession, and so the truth is that most retailers were hoping for much more contrived chaos on Black Friday than we actually witnessed.

Personally, I wish that this whole phenomenon would just simply disappear, because it definitely doesn’t bring out the best in the American people.

Who wants to see fellow citizens trampling one another and fighting with one another for cheaply made electronics that aren’t even manufactured in this country anyway?

Black Friday was always a disgusting spectacle, and now it appear to be fading.

Let’s start with Thanksgiving sales.  More stores than ever are opening on Thanksgiving Day itself, and according to SunTrust that was a total “bust” this year…

We believe Thanksgiving shopping was a bust. We note that traffic seemed below last year both on- and off-mall. Members of our team who went to the malls first had no problem finding parking or navigating stores. Crowds were tame and, with some exceptions there seemed to be more browsing than buying and less items purchased. We heard many people discussing that deals were not that compelling compared to years past. Interestingly, many retailers closed at midnight- which contributed to a sharp decline in traffic shortly thereafter. Off-mall, members of our team visited Walmart and Target for the openings and had no problem finding parking. Customers at both were focused on electronics. Lines, even early, were about half of what they were last year and quickly dissipated. The only off-mall big box retailer we visited with consistently long lines and customers making multiple item purchases was Kohl’s — where buys were focused on deals not available online.

Once Black Friday rolled around, things didn’t get any better.  For example, one analyst said that traffic at the Mall of America didn’t “look much busier than an average Saturday morning”

At the Mall of America in Minneapolis, the largest in the country, Edward Yruma, managing director at KeyBanc Capital Markets, said he’s seeing less traffic than years past as well. He was there from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. last night and arrived again at 8 a.m. this morning.

It doesn’t look much busier than an average Saturday morning,” said Yruma.

And in North Carolina, retailers saw “much less traffic than was anticipated”

Jeff Simpson, a director at Deloitte Consulting LLP’s retail practice, surveyed shopping centers in North Carolina and saw smaller crowds than expected for Black Friday.

Across the board, much less traffic than was anticipated,” he said. “Much, much slower.”

Of course this wasn’t much of a surprise.  A global recession has already begun, and investors were dumping retail stocks ahead of Thanksgiving in anticipation of a horrible shopping season.  The following comes from the New York Post

Wall Street, fearful that consumers are running out of cash heading into the crucial Christmas retail season, are selling off retail stocks and everything else sensitive to consumer spending.

So why are consumers running out of cash?

Well, it is because the middle class is dying, poverty in America is exploding and the cost of living continues to soar.

Just look at what is happening to healthcare costs.  It turns out that employees that work for medium and large companies in the U.S. are now paying more than double for health insurance than they were a decade ago…

Employees of midsize and large companies in 2015 paid an average of $4,700 for their health insurance, up from $2,001 in 2005, according to recent analysis from Aon Hewitt.

For much more on how the cost of living is absolutely crippling families all over this nation, please see my previous article entitled “Inflation Is Crushing The Middle Class“.

Meanwhile, things continue to get worse around the rest of the globe as well.  The number of unemployed job seekers just hit a brand new record high in France, Puerto Rico is on the verge of a major debt default, and on Friday there was an absolutely massive stock market decline in China

In China, equities saw a significant sell off as a result of investigations by the Chinese securities regulatory body into several brokerages for breaking regulations. The Shanghai Composite closed 199 points, or 5.48 percent, lower; the Shenzhen Composite closed 6.1 percent lower, the Chinext was down 6.1 percent, and the CSI300 Index saw a decline of 5.38 percent.

Chinese brokerages took major hits, with Citic Securities, Founder Securities, and China Merchants closing 10.1, 10, and 9.98 percent lower after news broke that the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) has launched investigations into these firms to weed out short selling and speculation.

I hope that you enjoyed this Thanksgiving as much as you possibly could, because all of the underlying economic numbers are absolutely screaming that hard times are ahead.

This year, Americans are going to spend an average of $130 on “self-gifting” and more than $800 on the holiday season overall.  People are spending money that they don’t have on things that they don’t need, and meanwhile very few of us are actively preparing for what promises to be a very challenging 2016.

So yes, let us enjoy the time that we have with our families, but let us also not be completely oblivious to the huge changes that are literally happening all around us.

The Triumph Of Materialism: The Average American Will Spend 830 Dollars On Christmas In 2015

Christmas Gift - Public DomainHas there ever been a major holiday more focused on materialism than the modern American Christmas?  This year, Americans are planning to spend an average of 830 dollars on Christmas gifts, which represents a jump of 110 dollars over the average of 720 dollars last year.  But have our incomes gone up accordingly?  Of course not.  In fact, real median household income in the United States has been experiencing a steady long-term decline.  So in order to fund all of our Christmas spending, we have got to go into even more debt.  We love to pull out our credit cards and spend money that we do not have on lots of cheap, useless stuff made on the other side of the world by workers making slave labor wages.  We do the same thing year after year, and most of us have grown accustomed to the endless cycle of growing debt.  In fact, one Pew survey found that approximately 70 percent of all Americans believe that “debt is a necessity in their lives”.  But then we have to work our fingers to the bone to try to make the payments on all of that debt, not realizing that debt systematically impoverishes us.  It may be hard to believe, but if you have a single dollar in your pocket and no debt, you have a greater net worth than 25 percent of all Americans.  I know that sounds crazy, but it is true.

Overall, when you add up all forms of debt (consumer, business, local government, state government and federal government), Americans are more than 60 trillion dollars in debt.

Let that sink in for a bit.

40 years ago, that number was sitting at about 3 trillion dollars.

We have been on the greatest debt binge in the history of the world.  Even though we were “the wealthiest, most prosperous nation on the entire planet”, we always had to have more.  We just kept on borrowing and borrowing and borrowing from the future until we completely destroyed it.

And we still haven’t learned anything.  Instead, this Christmas season we will be partying like it’s 2007

Americans are planning on celebrating Christmas like it’s 2007.

A November survey by Gallup found that US adults are planning on spending about $830 on average on Christmas gifts this year.

That’s a huge jump from last year’s $720 average.

Notably, American consumers haven’t suggested a number that high since November 2007, when they were planning on spending $866 on average.

Sadly, our incomes simply do not justify this kind of extravagance.  As Zero Hedge has pointed out, household incomes “actually peaked at least 15 years ago in 81% of U.S. counties.”

So why can’t we adjust our lifestyles to match?

Why must we always have more?

Here are more details on our declining incomes from the Visual Capitalist

  • Income peaked one year ago for many of the counties that are a part of the shale boom. This includes much of North and South Dakota, as well as parts of Texas, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. Income in Washington, D.C. and neighboring Arlington County also peaked then.
  • In 1999, a total of 1,623 counties had their households reach peak income. The majority of these counties are in the Midwest and Southeast.
  • The most southern part of California and parts of New England both peaked around 25 years ago.
  • Many states along the Rocky Mountains such as Wyoming and Montana had counties that peaked roughly 35 years ago.
  • Household income peaked in upstate New York, the northern tip of California, and southern Nevada at the same time that humans were first landing on the moon in 1969.

But you won’t hear this reported on the mainstream news, will you?

They want us to think that happy days are here again.

The following chart comes from the Federal Reserve, and it shows that real median household income in the United States has been trending down since 1999…

Real Median Household Income - Federal Reserve

Americans should be having smaller Christmases instead of bigger ones, but that doesn’t fit the image of who we still think that we are.

Recently, I published an article entitled “Goodbye Middle Class: 51 Percent Of All American Workers Make Less Than 30,000 Dollars A Year” that was shared more than 44,000 times on Facebook.  In that article, I included brand new figures that were just released by the Social Security Administration.  As you can see, the quality of our jobs is not great…

-38 percent of all American workers made less than $20,000 last year.

-51 percent of all American workers made less than $30,000 last year.

-62 percent of all American workers made less than $40,000 last year.

-71 percent of all American workers made less than $50,000 last year.

Without a doubt, most American families should not be spending hundreds of dollars a year on Christmas gifts.

At these income levels, most American families are just barely surviving.

But once again this year, millions upon millions of Americans will flock to the malls and big box stores in a desperate attempt to make themselves happy.

Sadly, those efforts will be in vain.  In fact, in a previous article I highlighted the fact that Christmas is the unhappiest season of the year.  The suicide rate spikes to the highest level of the year during “the holidays”, and 45 percent of all Americans report that they dread the Christmas season.  The following is an excerpt from a Psychology Today article

We are told that Christmas, for Christians, should be the happiest time of year, an opportunity to be joyful and grateful with family, friends and colleagues. Yet, according to the National Institute of Health, Christmas is the time of year that people experience the highest incidence of depression. Hospitals and police forces report the highest incidences of suicide and attempted suicide. Psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals report a significant increase in patients complaining about depression. One North American survey reported that 45% of respondents dreaded the festive season.

In recent years, an increasing number of Americans have given up the tradition of Christmas gifts entirely, and many of them that I know seem quite happy to have done so.

Of course most people are still quite satisfied with the status quo, and there are many that will get very angry with you if you dare to suggest that the way that Americans celebrate Christmas has gotten way out of hand.

But shouldn’t it alarm us that for most Americans the biggest holiday of the year is all about the “stuff” they are going to buy, the “stuff” they are going to give and the “stuff” they are going to get?

As a society, we are obsessed with things, but those things are never going to make us happy.

Perhaps we should all take some time to reflect on the traditions that we choose to participate in and what they really mean to us during this “holiday season”…

America Is Charlie Sheen: The CDC Says There Are 20,000,000 New STD Cases In America Each Year

Charlie Sheen - Photo by Angela George on FlickrCharlie Sheen’s announcement that he is HIV positive has created a huge uproar as critics attack him from every direction, but the truth is that Charlie Sheen is simply a reflection of our society as a whole.  You see, the truth is that it isn’t just big Hollywood stars that are engaged in insanely risky sexual behavior.  According to the CDC, there are 110 million cases of sexually-transmitted disease in America today, and another 20 million STD cases are added to that total every year.  The United States has the highest STD infection rate in the entire industrialized world, and more than half of all Americans will have a sexually-transmitted disease at some point during their lives.  Approximately one out of every four teen girls in the U.S. has at least one sexually transmitted disease, and our nation spends $16,000,000,000 a year treating STDs.  So go ahead and point a finger at Charlie Sheen if you want, but just remember that he is only a very small part of a raging national epidemic.

Now don’t get me wrong – I am certainly not defending Charlie Sheen.  I am simply pointing out our hypocrisy.  We love to tear others down while not realizing our own faults.

On Tuesday morning, Charlie Sheen told the world that he is HIV positive.  The following is how USA Today announced the story…

Charlie Sheen is HIV positive, he told Matt Lauer during a much-touted exclusive Today show interview Tuesday morning.

The actor, whose drug use, rehab stints, legal issues, outbursts, on-set antics and many romantic entanglements have shaped his bad-boy image, confirmed the news, which had been swirling since Monday.

Of course Charlie Sheen is not being criticized for being HIV positive.  Rather, the reason why so many people are jumping on him is because he continued to have unprotected sex even after he learned that he had HIV

When Lauer asked Sheen if he had engaged in unprotected sex since his diagnosis, the actor responded in the affirmative. “The two people I did that with were under the care of my doctor and they were completely warned ahead of time.”

Talk about stupid.

And yet millions of other Americans are also running around having casual sex with people even after becoming infected with a sexually-transmitted disease.

For example, let’s take a look at chlamydia.  According to the CDC, last year we broke the all-time record for the number of new chlamydia cases reported…

Chlamydia cases had dipped in 2013, but last year’s total of more than 1.4 million — or 456 cases per 100,000 — was the highest number of annual cases of any condition ever reported to the CDC.

The chlamydia rate was up almost three percent from 2013, new figures revealed.

The CDC is also reporting that cases of gonorrhea and syphilis are rising as well

The CDC report revealed gonorrhea cases totaled 350,062, up five percent from 2013, and the most contagious forms of syphilis jumped 15 per cent to 20,000 cases.

What makes these numbers even more heartbreaking is the fact that our young people are being disproportionately hit by these diseases.

Of the 20 million new STD cases each year, Americans from the age of 15 to 24 account for about half of them.

This should not be happening.  We have dramatically failed our young people, and the numbers just keep getting worse.

But instead of changing course and trying to do things differently, our entire culture continues to promote casual sex.  As I wrote about just recently, the average American spends an average of 293 minutes a day watching television.  And these days it is hard to find any show on television that is not talking about sex, and sometimes the commercials are the worst.  I get so disgusted when I am trying to watch a football game and a Viagra commercial comes on.  The reason I get so disgusted is that I know that millions of little boys are watching the games along with their fathers, and these commercials are communicating things to them that they do not need to know yet.

We need to teach our young people that there are rules, and that there can be very serious consequences for breaking those rules.

Above, I wrote about the latest numbers for chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis, but there are other STDs that are raging out of control as well.  The following statistics for HBV, genital herpes and HPV come from the American Sexual Health Association

  • One out of 20 people in the United States will get infected with hepatitis B (HBV) some time during their lives. Hepatitis B is 100 times more infectious than HIV.
  • Approximately half of HBV infections are transmitted sexually. HBV is linked to chronic liver disease, including cirrhosis and liver cancer.
  • It is estimated that as many as one in five Americans have genital herpes, a lifelong (but manageable) infection, yet up to 90 percent of those with herpes are unaware they have it.
  • With more than 50 million adults in the US with genital herpes and up to 776,000 new infections each year, some estimates suggest that by 2025 up to 40% of all men and half of all women could be infected.
  • Over 14 million people acquire HPV each year, and by age 50, at least 80 percent of women will have acquired genital HPV infection. Most people with HPV do not develop symptoms.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that we have a massive problem in this country.

But we certainly don’t want to hear about “morality”, do we?

We don’t want it anywhere in our schools, in our courts, in our government or in our entertainment.

We just want to do whatever we want to do, but then we are shocked when we learn that there are very serious consequences for being so reckless.

This STD epidemic is going to continue to rage out of control until we find a solution.

So how do we solve this problem?

Is there any hope that things can be turned around?

Please feel free to tell us what you think by posting a comment below…

Russia’s New ‘Nuclear Torpedo’ Can Create Giant Tsunamis And Wipe Out Entire Coastal Cities

Nuclear Explosion - Public DomainWhile the eyes of the world are on ISIS, Russia is creating weapons unlike anything the world has ever seen before.  Plans for a giant self-propelled nuclear torpedo that can create a giant tsunami more than 1,000 feet tall were recently “leaked by mistake” by the Russian media.  Apparently the warheads on these torpedos are designed to create so much radiation “that everything living will be killed” – including those that try to survive the attack by hiding in underground shelters.  These “robotic mini-submarines” would have a range of up to 10,000 kilometers and would be able to evade all existing U.S. detection systems.  To say that such a weapon would be a “game changer” would be a massive understatement.

I know that you are not just going to take my word for any of this.  So like I do in all of my articles, I am going to carefully document what I am saying.

The reason why we know about the plans for this new nuclear torpedo is because they were displayed on Russian state television for a few moments during a recent broadcast.  According to Russian officials, this was an “accident”.  The following comes from a report in the Independent

Secret plans for a new Russian nuclear torpedo system have been shown on state-controlled television in what the Kremlin said was an accident.

A close-up of a confidential document detailing “Ocean Multipurpose System: Status-6” was broadcast for several seconds by Channel One Russia and NTV during coverage of a meeting between Vladimir Putin and military officials.

Could it be possible that this “accident” happened on purpose?

Could it be possible that it was intended as a warning for the Obama administration?

You never know.

But without a doubt, this is the kind of weapon that would keep military planners up at night.  According to RT, this new nuclear torpedo is designed to create “extensive zones of radioactive contamination” that would ensure that no “military, economic, business or other activity” would occur in that area for a very long time…

The presentation slide titled “Ocean Multipurpose System: Status-6” showed some drawings of a new nuclear submarine weapons system. It is apparently designed to bypass NATO radars and any existing missile defense systems, while also causing heavy damage to “important economic facilities” along the enemy’s coastal regions.

The footnote to the slide stated that Status-6 is intended to cause “assured unacceptable damage” to an adversary force. Its detonation “in the area of the enemy coast” would result in “extensive zones of radioactive contamination” that would ensure that the region would not be used for “military, economic, business or other activity” for a “long time.”

In addition, Konstantin Sivkov of the Russian Geopolitical Academy told the BBC that this kind of weapon could be used to create a tsunami more than 1,000 feet high…

A warhead of up to 100 megatons could produce a tsunami up to 500m (1,650ft) high, wiping out all living things 1,500km (930 miles) deep inside US territory

As I have written about previously, a whopping 39 percent of all Americans live in counties that directly border a shoreline.  The detonation of just a handful of these weapons could wipe out the entire east coast and kill off a very substantial percentage of the U.S. population.

On top of all that, the BBC is reporting that a state-run Russian publication is suggesting that these new torpedos are being fitted with extremely radioactive cobalt warheads…

According to state-run Rossiiskaya Gazeta, the destructive power attributed to the new torpedo’s warhead would fit the description of a cobalt bomb.

That would be a type of thermonuclear warhead with a layer of cobalt-59, which on detonation would be transmuted into highly radioactive cobalt-60 with a half-life longer than five years.

Such a weapon would guarantee “that everything living will be killed”, the paper said – there would not even be any survivors in bunkers.

A cobalt bomb has never been tested because of the devastating radiation it would unleash.

Worst of all, we would have no advance warning that these torpedos were coming.  They can be launched from anywhere, they reportedly have a range of up to 10,000 kilometers, and they are designed to “avoid all acoustic tracking devices and other traps”

On the diagram the giant torpedo’s range is given as “up to 10,000km” (6,200 miles) and depth of trajectory is “up to 1,000m” (3,300ft).

It was developed by Rubin, a submarine design bureau in St Petersburg.

It would, apparently, be launched by nuclear-powered submarines of the 09852 “Belgorod” and 09851 “Khabarovsk” series.

Rossiiskaya Gazeta called the torpedo a “robotic mini-submarine”, travelling at 100 knots (185km/h; 115mph), which would “avoid all acoustic tracking devices and other traps”.

We already know that Russia has been building “black hole submarines” that NATO officials admit are undetectable.

So Russia already has the capability to approach our coastlines without us even knowing about it.

But these new nuclear torpedos take the game to an entirely new level.

And of course this is not the only new weapons system that Russia has been developing in anticipation of World War III.  Earlier this year, I discussed several more in an article entitled “The Next-Generation Weapons That Russia Will Use Against The United States In World War III“.

Sadly, the Obama administration seems almost totally oblivious to this threat.  Our strategic nuclear forces are so outdated that floppy disks and rotary phones are still being used, and Barack Obama is fond of saying that “the Cold War’s been over for 20 years“.

Unfortunately for us, the Russians do not see things the same way.  Anti-American sentiment inside Russia is at an all-time high, and every time the U.S. interferes in Syria or Ukraine the Russians get even angrier.

Just like we do, there are “talking heads” on Russian television that tell people what to think.  And many of these “talking heads” on Russian television are openly talking about how war with the United States is inevitable.  These days, the Russians consider themselves to be the great force for good in the world, and they consider America to be the great force for evil in the world.  In fact, one of their most popular talking heads named Alexander Dugin has publicly called the U.S. the “kingdom of the Antichrist”.

And even though the Russian economy has dipped into recession, the Russians continue to feverishly prepare for war.  This year alone, Russian military spending is up 33 percent.

Yes, ISIS is a far greater threat than most Americans would even dare to imagine as I discussed yesterday.  In the times to come, I fully expect to see terror attacks inside this country unlike anything we have ever seen before.

But I am completely convinced that the greater long-term strategic threat is Russia.

The Russians are feverishly preparing for World War III while Barack Obama acts like it could never possibly happen.

Hopefully Obama is right, because if he is wrong the consequences for this nation will be absolutely unthinkable.

Ted Koppel Is Buying Freeze-Dried Food For The Day When A Cyberattack Takes Out The Power Grid

Central Park - Public DomainMost Americans have absolutely no idea how incredibly vulnerable our electrical grid is, but Ted Koppel does.  For many years, Koppel was the level-headed host of Nightline on ABC, but now he is issuing a very chilling warning to America.  For more than a year, he investigated potential threats to our power grid, and he has detailed what he discovered in a new book entitled “Lights Out“.  He is convinced that a massive cyberattack could take down our entire electrical grid for an extended period of time, and he was horrified to learn that the Department of Homeland Security really doesn’t have a plan for how to deal with this kind of a scenario.

What Koppel found out during the course of his investigation freaked him out so much that he actually decided to buy freeze-dried food for himself, his children, and even his grandchildren.  The following comes from CBS News

In “Lights Out,” Koppel paints a grim picture of a paralyzing power outage in the form of an all-out cyberattack on the nation’s electrical grid.

“It’s frightening,” Koppel said. “I mean, it is frightening enough that my wife and I decided we were going to buy enough freeze-dried food for all of our kids and their kids.”

Koppel believes that Russia, China and Iran already have the ability to conduct such attacks.  And actually, the truth is that many other nations such as North Korea have been rapidly developing the capability to conduct such operations as well.

It is only a matter of time until we see absolutely massive cyberattacks unleashed against national power grids, and the United States is the most likely target.  Unfortunately for us, our government has done very little to prepare for this eventuality.  Here is more from CBS News

Koppel says the one agency that would be ready to counter a cyberattack such as this is the Department of Homeland Security. But are they ready?

“No,” he said. “I’ve talked to every former Secretary of Homeland Security, and they all acknowledge there is no plan.”

And the current Secretary, Jeh Johnson, didn’t offer much guidance to Koppel, either: “I kept asking ‘What’s the plan?’ Why wait until disaster strikes? Why not tell ’em? Do you have a plan?’ And he just sort of pointed up at a shelf filled with white binders and he said, ‘Look, I’m sure there’s something up there somewhere.'”

But we have been warned.  In fact, just recently there was a major congressional hearing about this.  At that hearing, one member of Congress explained that there is a significant attack on our power grid once every four days

Such attacks hit the nation’s electric grid once every four days, according to estimates, Rep. Randy Weber, a Texas Republican, said at the House Subcommittee on Research and Technology hearing. The session was focused on better protecting the nation’s power grid and identifying its vulnerability to cyberattacks.

In over 300 cases of significant cyber and physical attacks since 2011, suspects have never been identified,” Weber said.

And of course it isn’t just a cyberattack that we need to be concerned about.  As I wrote about just over a month ago, a giant electromagnetic pulse either from the sun or from a weapon could fry our grid at any time as well.

Perhaps this is not something that you are making preparations for personally, but the White House sure is.  According to the Houston Chronicle, the White House just released a plan that details how it would respond to an EMP event…

The White House Thursday released a contingency plan for about the most terrifying scenario possible: a massive electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that wipes out the power grid.

Just imagine no more cell phones, Internet, credit cards, gas pumps, running water, electric lights or industry in a single fateful moment.

It could come from a solar flare that sends ultra-high-energy particles cascading toward the earth, frying every electrical transformer they encounter. So the White House, in conjunction with 24 other federal agencies, published a “National Space Weather Strategy” and accompany action plan, outlining a response if such a disaster were to occur.

I don’t know if any of us can really imagine how crazy things would get if the lights went out and never came back on.  We have all become so incredibly dependent on computers, cell phones, televisions, ATMs, heating and cooling systems, credit card readers, gas pumps, cash registers, refrigerators, hospital equipment etc.  What would life be like if suddenly we couldn’t use any of those things anymore?

At some point there will be a massive power grid failure.  It is just a matter of time.  And as space weather consultant John Kappenman recently told Gizmodo, when it happens power might not be restored for months or even years…

“If you take electricity away, either immediately or within a short period of time, you’ll suffer the failure of all critical infrastructure,” Kappenman said. This includes things like water, sewage treatment, gas stations, banks and hospitals. “One of the concerns that we have is that in the worst case scenarios, we could be looking at weeks, months, maybe even years before restoration of the grid.”

That’s why preppers are taking a longer view. “I have a five year supply of food for employees and family,” a source who requested anonymity told Gizmodo. This individual says he’s rigged up a 12.5 kW solar array in the “remote wilderness,” complete with “power outlets and water spigots about every 50 feet” to support a small fleet of RV trailers for the long haul. Other preppers agree that a multi-year food and water supply is crucial. Some are also stockpiling large quantities of medications (“five year supplies of meds can be obtained from Asia without prescriptions,” one source told Gizmodo).

For much more on what we could potentially be facing, I encourage you to check out the following articles…

-“Electromagnetic Pulse: One Day We Will Wake Up In An America Without Electricity And Society Will Totally Break Down

-“The EMP Threat: All It Would Take Is A Couple Of Explosions To Send America Back To The 1800s

-“What Are You Going To Do When A Massive EMP Blast Fries The U.S. Electrical Grid?

So how can we get prepared?  The YouTube video that I have posted below was produced by Infowars, and it contains advice from renowned survivalist experts including James Wesley Rawles.  I think that you will find it to be very helpful…