The outage lasted less than a day, but it proved what many already knew, that America had become a nation so dependent on government subsidies that any glitch in the system could lead to total pandemonium.

But if you thought that isolated incident was bad, imagine what could happen next month.

We say next month because the USDA, which oversees the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), has just issued an order to SNAP agency directors calling for their respective States to implement an emergency contingency program because of government funding issues. In a letter obtained by the Crossroads Urban Center food pantry, the USDA is directing state agencies to, “delay their November issuance files and delay transmission to State Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) vendors until further notice.”

What this means is that should Congress fail to increase the debt ceiling this week, come November there will literally be millions of people in the United States who will have exactly zero dollars transferred to their EBT cards.

What will happen to the nearly 50 million people who depend on these benefits to survive?

Think this past weekend and multiply it across the entirety of the United States of America.

In the State of Utah the immediate effect of the USDA’s contingency plan will be a freeze in benefits for 100,000 people. Richard Phillips, a homeless man who depends on the government’s monthly distributions, warned what would happen next:

It’s going to cause problems… because then you’re going to come to find out that you’re going to have people starting to steal and do what they have to do to survive. 

Video Report via The Daily Sheeple:

(Watch at Youtube)

Here is the USDA letter in full:

(click for full size image)

Reprinted with permission from SHTFplan.com.

According to the new report released yesterday all of our worst fears may soon be realized should the United States default on its obligations to creditors, employees, and recipients of state-sponsored benefits.

The report details the consequences of Congress failing to raise the debt ceiling so that the government can borrow more money. The political impasse will likely be resolved in the 11th hour just as it has been during prior showdowns. But, the report has much broader implications.

This is nothing short of an official admission and confirmation of the decades’ long woeful mismanagement of U.S. economic, fiscal and monetary policy.

Here’s what you can expect to happen on that fateful day when our government is no longer extended the credit it needs to cover its trillion dollar commitments:

“In the event that a debt limit impasse were to lead to a default, it could have a catastrophic effect on not just financial markets but also on job creation, consumer spending and economic growth,” the report said.

“Credit markets could freeze, the value of the dollar could plummet, US interest rates could skyrocket, the negative spillovers could reverberate around the world, and there might be a financial crisis and recession that could echo the events of 2008 or worse.”

…

“Considering the experience of countries around the world that have defaulted on their debt, not only might the economic consequences of default be profound, but those consequences, including high interest rates, reduced investment, higher debt payments, and slow economic growth, could last for more than a generation,” the report states.

Via: Yahoo and HuffPost

While all the political hoopla in Congress will eventually lead to an agreement on raising the debt ceiling, the fact is that we are very quickly approaching our limit as a nation.

At some point our creditors are going to pull the plug. They understand that the $200 trillion in obligations we have will never be met. Countries like Russia, China, and even the private central banking conglomerates are positioning their chess pieces right now for when this day comes.

The end result is going to widespread financial and economy destruction, a meltdown of the U.S. dollar, and a collapse of our very way of life as tens of millions of Americans will be instantly impoverished.

Economic analyst John Williams has warned that when it does finally happen, we can fully expect disruptions to our food supplies and the normal flow of commerce.

Without the U.S. dollar as a viable mechanism of exchange, such a  scenario could very quickly lead to civil unrest, violence, and widespread looting. While most Americans may deny that the possibility exists, it’s exactly the scenario that U.S. Homeland Security experts and the Pentagon have been simulating for years.

The U.S. Treasury Department has confirmed it can happen. The military and DHS are actively war-gaming contingency plans and stockpiling ammunition, recruiting soldiers for interment operations, and arming up local police forces. Furthermore, governments around the world are training for it.

Take their lead, and do the same on an individual level by developing your own long-term preparedness plan. Set aside food in case it is no longer available at grocery stores. Save some gold and silver to utilize as a mechanism of exchange should the dollar crash. Learn to use a firearm and have ammunition on hand to defend yourself when the masses start fighting for whatever resources remain.

While the timing of the Treasury Department’s report is designed to instill fear in the American public, understand that raising the debt ceiling will do absolutely nothing to resolve the underlying issues we face and the consequences that will eventually be realized.

Reprinted with permission from SHTFplan.com.

If it’s plugged into the internet there is a near 100% chance that the National Security Agency is monitoring it.

So how does the average American get off the control grid?

According to well known anti-virus software founder John McAfee the answer is simple.

Decentralization.

Rather than connecting to the telecom sponsored (and government integrated) internet, we bypass it completely and connect directly to each other’s devices in a peer-to-peer environment using what is essentially a distributed network architecture.

He’s been working on the new device, dubbed D-Central, for several years but has recently sped up its development in light of revelations that the NSA is tapping the digital interactions and personal correspondence of virtually every American citizen.

The new “NSA Killer” will, according to McAfee, make it difficult if not impossible for the NSA to tap into personal communications like they do today because the device would operate in what is known as a “dark web” and allow an individual to completely obscure their identity.

McAfee says with D-Central there will be no way for the government to tell, “who you are or where you are.”

The gadget, which McAfee wants to sell for less than $100, would communicate with smartphones, tablets and notebooks to create a decentralized network that couldn’t be accessed by government agencies. Specifically, it would create a small private network that would act as a “dark web” where users could communicate and share files privately.

The device would have a wireless range of about three blocks and those in range would be able to communicate with each other. McAfee has reportedly been working on the gadget for a few years but has accelerated development in recent months given the NSA leaks.

At present, he said the design is in place and they are looking for partners to help with hardware. A public prototype is expected to be ready within six months with the current device said to take a round shape with no display. This of course is assuming the project isn’t shot down by regulators before it’s ever released.

Source: Tech Spot via The Daily Crux

If true, the promise of a $100 NSA-Killer device that crushes the trillion dollar surveillance state is quite appealing and one that Americans will likely respond to with open arms should it become available on the free market. We say “should,” because there’s already talk that the D-Central privacy device may be banned in the United States because it could potentially be used for nefarious purposes.

Of course with that logic we should also ban telephones, computers, credit cards, and pretty much everything else, because criminal elements will always adopt emerging technologies for their enterprises.

The obvious, but unspoken, reason for such a ban would, of course, be that the government would lose the ability to monitor, and thus control, the American public.

According to the Future Tense Central web site McAfee’s new device will be available March 22, 2014.

Decentralize. It’s the only way to go.

Reprinted with permission from SHTFplan.com.

It’s often the case that, despite countless warnings from those considered to be fringe lunatics, the vast majority of the populace is blindsided by horrific, paradigm-altering events. The signs are almost always there, but people simply refuse to believe it can happen to them. ”It” always happens somewhere else, and we get to watch it play out on television from the comfort of our living rooms.

But, as financial guru and strategic investor Bill Fleckenstein points out in the following highly insightful interview with King World News, America’s fantasy of unlimited borrowing, consumption and confidence will soon be revealed for the sham that it really is. And when the masses realize what has happened – that the government and Federal reserve are trapped and the “great unwind” finally begins – it will lead to nothing short of widespread panic on a level never before seen.

And this time, it’ll be right outside of our front doors.

Right now, people continue to believe that the same idiots that created all of these problems, namely the central banks, are going to somehow get us out of it with the exact same policies that got us into it, only at a much higher (aggressive) level of pursuing those policies.

We’ve had so much artificial stimulus, and we’ve misallocated so much capital.  And over the couple of decades we’ve been doing this we’ve kind of broken the economy and the financial system.  So, I don’t think you can worry about what’s on the other side.  We haven’t even gotten people to understand the charade that we have.

What the masses have done over and over again is to believe one more time that it’s all going to be OK … We are in a unique moment in history.  The whole world is printing confetti, and (yet) people seem to think that’s going to work out fine.

…

The longer you keep pursuing insane policies, the more you pile (them) on top of each other, the worse it gets … So, when the Fed can’t print money and we have to deal with this, it’s going to be brutal.

…

The fact of the matter is Americans, in the aggregate, don’t see any reason to own metal.  They believe in the lunatics at the Fed, and the rest of the Western world is that way (as well).  Obviously Asia doesn’t quite see it that way.  But it’s understandable why the average American doesn’t buy gold — If they believe in a fantasy, why would they need it?

As the fantasy dies, then they will understand the need to own gold.

Via King World News: Full Interview

As an investment adviser and strategist, Fleckenstein obviously focuses his dialogue on the financial and economic, and in this case the asset that would protect his investors from the disaster that is coming. This is not to say, however, that he is solely recommending gold as the only crisis-proof investment.

Read between the lines and if you understand the need to own gold in this environment it means you also understand why precious metals will soar in value during a crisis.

Likewise, you would no doubt understand that should gold and silver skyrocket in price, so too will other essential assets.

When the US dollar is crushed by our foreign creditors and our government can no longer support the 100 million Americans dependent on electronic government benefits to put food on the table or keep a roof over their heads, it is then that the whole system as we have come to know it goes into meltdown, complete with panic, looting, and emergency intervention under the banner of martial law.

Gold and silver are just one of numerous asset classes you should stockpile in your preparedness portfolio. A well developed crisis plan should also include other key investments such as long-term food storage, home defense tools, arable land and barterable trade skills.

As those around you come to the realization that their world has been built on pillars of fantasy, commerce comes to a standstill and stability turns to pandemonium, those with the foresight to have insulated themselves from the worst will have, at the very least, a fighting chance.

Prepare for panic. It’s coming.

Reprinted with permission from SHTFplan.com.

If so you may want to reconsider your options. Because if the following report from the Institute of Justice is any indication, nothing you hold in a private bank account account is safe anymore.

Can the government use civil forfeiture to take your money when you have done nothing wrong—and then pocket the proceeds?

The IRS thinks so.

For over 30 years, Terry Dehko has successfully run a grocery store in Fraser, Mich., with his daughter Sandy.  In January 2013, without warning,the federal government used civil forfeiture to seize all of the money from the Dehkos’ store bank account (more than $35,000) even though they’ve done absolutely nothing wrong.

Their American Dream is now a nightmare.

Federal civil forfeiture law features an appalling lack of due process:  It empowers the government to seize private property from Americans without ever charging, let alone convicting, them of a crime.  Perversely, the government then pockets the proceeds while providing no prompt way to get a court to review the seizure. 

On September 25, 2013, Terry and Sandy teamed up with the Institute for Justice to fight back in federal court.  A victory will vindicate not just their right to be free from abusive forfeiture tactics, but the right of every American not to have their property wrongfully seized by government.

Source: Institute of Justice via AEI / The Daily Crux

Every year the government of the United States seizes tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money and redistributes these funds to “black” projects which are often unaccounted for. On September 10th, 2001, for example, Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that the D.O.D. had lost around $2.3 Trillion. The funds were unaccounted for and any investigation into where they went ended the following day when the office holding the records in question was reportedly destroyed in the Pentagon attack.

No one was held to account. No one went to jail. No one was punished.

Make a suspicious transaction or can’t account for your money as a private citizen, however, and they will seize everything you own and treat you like a financial terrorist.

There are no warrants, no charges, no court proceedings. They just take it. And if you don’t comply, they’ll send an IRS SWAT team through your front door and imprison you.

What’s frightening about the experience of Terry and Sandy Dehko is that just months prior to their seizure of their assets the Internal Revenue Service completed an audit indicating that all of their records were legitimate, and their small business was operating within the guidelines of Federal tax law.

No matter.

When surveillance state flagging algorithms spotted them depositing suspicious amounts of money just below the $10,000 required federal reporting limit into their bank account, a necessity for the Dehkos because their insurance only covered up to $10,000 in losses, they were red flagged by automated monitoring systems as possible money launderers.

Their $35,000 was subsequently seized after the IRS filed a secret warrant (a lot of that going around these days) accusing them of “structuring.” Because of the nature of civil forfeiture laws they now have to fight for their own money and prove their activities were legal. The IRS required no proof whatsoever.

An accusation was enough.

These heavy handed practices will not get any better going forward, especially considering the fiscal state of our nation.

The IRS and other government agencies are booming, hiring on thousands of new employees for enforcement, and arming them with assault weapons and ammunition for those who reuse to comply.

Last year the government took in over $4 billion in forfeiture money. How much of that was from Americans like the Dehkos, who did nothing wrong?

One day soon, they will come for your money, too – and probably a whole lot more.

Do you need any more reason to get out of the banking system, or will you wait until they take everything you’ve worked for?

Related: Help the Institute of Justice stop civil forfeiture

Reprinted with permission from SHTFplan.com.

Some have escaped major cities and headed for the hills, but considering that the majority of the U.S. population is centered in 146 of the country’s 3000 counties, chances are most of us will find ourselves in the middle of the worst that humanity has to offer.

Developing strategies that encompass everything from food preparation and water harvesting, to security and communications should be at the top of our lists. This is where highly respected author and Survival Blog founder James Rawles puts much of his focus in his most recent interview with the team at alternative news hub SGT Report.

It’s an interview you don’t want to miss, because that one little oversight in your preparedness plan may be the mistake that kills you.

Your chances of survival are fairly low if you’re in a major metropolitan area.

In a true grid down situation I recommend that you literally be prepared to hunker down for months.

(Watch at Youtube)

Among other critical preparedness topics James Rawles discusses the effects and survival strategies for a grid down collapse in high population urban centers:

For someone in an urban area who plans to hunker down and doesn’t plan to bug out with country cousins, one thing that should be at the top of everyone’s list but that’s very much overlooked is… if you’re in a situation where you have power because you have photovoltaics but your neighbors don’t, you really should concentrate on black-out curtains for your windows. You need to black out your house completely, without any light leaks so that your house will look just as black as any other on your block.

Otherwise you’re going to be targeted as the rich guy. You don’t want to become a loot-me-beacon at night. That should be a fairly high priority for you.

…

There’s so many things that are gonna go into it. If we’re truly in a grid-down situation you’re going to have to think in terms of not just food storage, but where you can collect rainwater or surface water, whether it’s a pond or a creek, and how you’re going to transport that water home without access to a gas engine vehicle.

…

You’re gonna want to be able to cook without any spices whatsoever… From an efficiency standpoint… you’re going to want to use a special insulated cooker… It’s essentially like crock-pot cooking where you bring your water to a boil, add your rice, meat, vegetables, whatever… and you’re going to enclose it in a double-insulated container. With that cooking method you have a couple of advantages. One is you don’t have cooking odors escaping and the other is you have the absolute minimum energy input.

That’s just one example of the work-arounds that you can use in an urban or suburban environment if you literally can’t trust your ravenous neighbors.

…

For someone who has to hunker down you’re going to have think through each of those situations, whether it’s sanitation, cooking, home security, communications… the whole works. You’re going to have to think through each of those.

Unfortunately, in an urban environment, you can do everything right but if you’re neighbors can’t adapt you’re going to end up just as dead, because… the sanitation situation is going to be horrendous. And, if people are going door-to-door kicking in the front doors of houses, eventually they’re going to get to your house. If it’s that bad, if it’s a total worst case your chances are not that good hunkering down in place.

You may beat the odds, but I would rather be somewhere else, frankly.

…

[Living in the city] You’re in the same situation as probably 30% or 40% of my readership, so don’t feel like you’re alone. There are a lot of people that would love to relocate, but either for financial reasons, or family obligations, or work obligations, or health considerations… you’re not alone.

…

A level of planning that you’ll have to make is definitely a step up than your average suburbanite. You’re going to have to think everything through. You’re going to have to shepherd your funds, and prioritize your purchasing and your training with exactitude.

All it takes is one overlooked area and you’re another statistic.

We strongly encourage you to listen to James Rawles’ interview with SGT Report in full. It has tons of ideas, tips and situations that any serious prepper needs to consider – not tomorrow, today.

There are a variety of excellent resources available to help you insulate yourself for a long-term disaster scenario no matter where you find yourself when it goes down, starting with Rawles’ preparedness guidelines outlined in his book How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It where he details tactics, techniques, and technologies for uncertain times.

We encourage you to forward this to friends and family who may not be as convinced as you are about the possibility of an emergency that wipes out our electric grid.

The fact is, the U.S. government has been preparing for exactly such a scenario, and they’ll be launching nationwide simulations later this year. They’ve been stockpiling food, water treatment supplies, firearms, ammunition, and training personnel to deal with the aftermath.

If you’re not doing the same thing, then you haven’t been paying attention – or you’ve chosen to stick your hand in the sand and pretend that it’s not really happening.

Reprinted with permission from SHTFplan.com.

Case in point: Acapulco, Mexico.

This week flood waters and landslides ravaged the resort town of Acapulco and stranded a reported 40,000 tourists, leaving them without food, water, or any means of escape. Major roadways into and out of Acapulco have been blocked by debris, cutting off recovery efforts for the city’s 680,000 residents.

With the city devoid of law and order, and emergency responders overwhelmed, looters hit the streets in a matter of hours.

You’d think that those who failed to prepare for the possibility of a disaster would be out looking to acquire extra food, fresh drinking water and supplies, but apparently, as we saw in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, electronics and other consumer goods were the order of the day:

Back in town, thousands of looters streamed out of the Costco wholesale store in the exclusive Diamante district, wading out of the flooded store with food, televisions and even fridges while soldiers and federal police looked on, AFP correspondents said.

…

Other looters broke glass doors to enter shops in two malls, snatching home appliances and mattresses.

“We can’t stop them. We are in a serious emergency situation,” a soldier said, declining to give his name.

Source: The Nation

The looters were out in droves looking for TV’s and other high cost goods when they first realized there was no police prescence.

By morning, it became clear that the situation was a bit more widespread then they had anticipated. People quickly realized they didn’t have enough essential goods on their pantry shelves and made their way to local grocery stores, where, as you may have guessed, they were met with thousands of others who had the same idea.

All of them were a day late…

“We are taking food to our children, there’s nothing to eat,” said a woman hauling away grocery bags.

…

Meanwhile, tourists and residents formed huge lines to buy food at three supermarkets that remained open.

Those who couldn’t find food at local grocery stores turned to their government.

But there were too many hands and not enough food.

As you can see from the number of reached out hands in the photo above, and the number of rations available, the situation was dire for many who never thought to keep reserve foods in their homes.

Time and again we have seen these same events play out after a disaster.

After Hurricane Katrina hundreds died from dehydration and lack of medical supplies.

Within a couple of days of Hurricane Sandy hitting the east coast last year residents were rummaging through trash cans for food.

Yearly power outages during winter months leave tens of thousands without electricity and supplies, and grocery stores are cleaned out within hours ahead of a storm, leaving the majority of people to depend on the few food items they have in their cupboards.

What’s notable about this is that it happens every few months somewhere in the world, and people still don’t take preventative measures to insulate themselves for the next time.

And there is always a next time.

Katrina, Sandy, Acapulco – all of these are small-scale temporary emergency events lasting a few days to a couple weeks. And in all cases the local and federal governments are able to provide support and supplies, albeit usually in a disorganized and limited manner.

Imagine how horrific it will be for the non-prepper in a large-scale disaster that destabilizes an entire region or country for an extended period of time.

It is simply impossible for emergency management agencies to respond to a crisis involving hundreds of thousands or millions of people across several regions or metropolitan areas all at once.

Even FEMA, which recently stockpiled 140 million meals-ready-eat, isn’t prepared. They have said so themselves, and recommend a minimum two week emergency stockpile. Their response will be limited, and more than likely wholly ineffective.

Though it seems like a lot, 140 million meals will go quickly. A disaster affecting just 1% of the U.S. population, for example, would consume that many meals within just two weeks. If 10% of the population were affected, forget about it. We’re talking complete meltdown – looting, theft, robbery, violence, blood in the streets.

We live in a world of perceived security and safety.

As Tess Pennington notes in The Anatomy of a Breakdown, one far-from-equilibrium event and the whole thing falls apart – in 72 hours or less.

Reprinted with permission from SHTFplan.com.

It’s a theory put forth by numerous survival and relocation specialists, and one that makes complete sense if you consider what happens in a truly serious collapse-like scenario.

Survival Blog founder James Rawles calls them the golden horde:

Because of the urbanization of the U.S. population, if the entire eastern or western power grid goes down for more than a week, the cities will rapidly become unlivable. I foresee that there will be an almost unstoppable chain of events:

Power -> water -> food distribution -> law and order -> arson fires -> full scale looting

In his recent documentary Strategic Relocation, retreat expert Joel Skousen echoes Rawles’ warnings:

The number one threat that I concentrate on. It’s not terrorism, it’s not natural disaster, it’s not even government or war.

The major threat is population density.

Because every crisis that threatens, even a local crisis, can turn exponential because of close proximity to people who cannot help themselves. Even good people panic in a crisis…

So, where should you be when it happens?

To find the answer, let’s consider where we shouldn’t be.

Recent U.S. census data indicates that out of the 3000 counties in the United States, fully 50% of the population lives in just 146.

If you want to have any chance of surviving a wide-spread catastrophic event by avoiding the hordes that will be searching for critical resources in its aftermath, then check out the following map to get a visual reference of the areas you want to stay away from.

                                                          (Click here for larger image)

                                 (For a complete list of the counties highlighted on this map click here)

When considering your retreat locations or emergency evacuation routes, be familiar with the population densities of the area you’re headed to, as well as those counties in your immediate vicinity.

In his book Patriots, James Rawles specifically points out that Highway 80, running through California, will be one of the busiest evacuation routes in the country as millions of people pour out of major cities to flee disaster or in search of  food.

So, no matter where you are located, consider your proximity to high traffic thoroughfares going in and out of the city. During Hurricane Rita, which hit Houston several years ago, every major pipeline out of the city was jammed for hundreds of miles. Interstate 45 from Houston to Dallas was bumper to bumper traffic. Normally a 4 hour trip, those who didn’t evacuate in time were stuck on the highway without food, gas, sanitation, or potable water for upwards of 15 hours.

This is why Joel Skousen suggests that those looking for strategic retreat locations or homes outside of major cities consider highway proximity. Be at least 5 – 7 miles away from any major thoroughfare, which is generally outside the range people want to venture off familiar roads, and far enough away to make any ‘walkers’ too tired to attempt the trip without ample clean water and food.

If you have no choice but to be in a major metro area during a serious emergency situation, consider strategies that can help you remain sustainable in the city even in the midst of panic.

Hat tip Satori

Reprinted with permission from SHTFplan.com.

It should be clear based on reports this week of US soldiers and intelligence operatives entering Syrian borders last Saturday that a military operation is now in progress. After the events that played out in front of the world on Wednesday, when it was claimed that Assad launched a chemical attack against his own people, there is no question as to what was going to happen next.

It’s go time in the middle east:

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel suggested Friday that the Pentagon was moving naval forces closer to Syria in preparation for a possible decision by President Obama to order military strikes.

Fox News

And we’re not just positioning boats. Via Zero Hedge:

Moments ago the inevitable denouement arrived when as CBS’ David Martin reports, the US is preparing for a cruise missile launch against Syria, and is further ordering warships closer to Syria to be prepared and ready for when the trigger is pulled.

For those who would suggest this is just posturing, there is already a precedent:

In the eyes of the world Bashar al-Assad is now a mass murderer and he’s about to get Saddam’d by Hussein.

Reprinted with permission from SHTFplan.com.

If the following from France’s second largest newspaper Le Figaro is accurate, then we must assume that war is now a foregone conclusion.

According to our information, the regime’s opponents, supervised by Jordanian, Israeli and American commandos moving towards Damascus since mid-August. This attack could explain the possible use of the Syrian president to chemical weapons.

According to information obtained by Le Figaro , the first trained in guerrilla warfare by the Americans in Jordan Syrian troops reportedly entered into action since mid-August in southern Syria, in the region of Deraa. A first group of 300 men, probably supported by Israeli and Jordanian commandos, as well as men of the CIA, had crossed the border on August 17. A second would have joined the 19. According to military sources, the Americans, who do not want to put troops on the Syrian soil or arming rebels in part controlled by radical Islamists form quietly for several months in a training camp set up at the border Jordanian- Syrian fighters ASL, the Free Syrian Army, handpicked.

Translation via Zero Hedge

What’s equally as intriguing as boots on the ground inside of the Syrian border is the fact that these troops and intelligence officers reportedly made their way into the country on August 17th, fully four days before reports and images surfaced showing hundreds of men, women and children killed by a chemical weapons attack allegedly at the hands of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The purported attack, which some experts argue was a set-up, left even the pacifist government of France calling for military intervention. Furthermore, should UN investigators, who conveniently happen to be in-country investigating possible chemical weapons stockpiles, confirm that the attack did take place, then we can expect armed military confrontation in the middle east once again.

Of interest is also the fact the NASDAQ stock market exchange was halted today due to what NASDAQ officials call a technical glitch. Within hours of the ‘glitch’ cyber security experts suggested that this was no accident, but rather, a hack attack originating from the “hacking collective” known as the Cyber Fighters of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, an Iranian backed organization.

Earlier this week President Obama met with the heads of the Federal Reserve, the SEC, the FDIC and several other agencies responsible for monitoring and implementing U.S. financial, economic and monetary policy, indicating that there could be a serious crisis unfolding behind the scenes of our financial system. This comes on the heels of the Federal Reserve claiming that they would begin to “taper” the stimulus, a move that would likely send massive shock waves through domestic and global stock markets.

This is all speculation, of course, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that the US financial system is potentially on the brink of a massive re-collapse, while the Obama administration is actively engaging Syria in what we can only conclude will lead to a broader conflict in the middle east.

Throughout history governments have deflected blame for economic disasters by turning their efforts to a far off enemy and going to war. It’s certainly no accident and it’s a forecast that contrarian observers have made repeatedly as the global economic crisis deepened.

Is this what we’re seeing play out right now?

If so, then the implications are far reaching, because anyone who thinks this is going to be another Iraq are kidding themselves. This time, the Russians and the Chinese have a stake in the game, and they too have been positioning pieces on the Grand Chessboard. Not only have the Russians already advised western nations that the Syrians will be armed with weapons never before seen in the middle east, but they have warned that any military confrontation in the region could potentially go nuclear.

The question then becomes: who were the Russians talking about?

Syria doesn’t have nuclear weapons. Neither does Iran (at least not for a few more months if Israeli intelligence reports are to be believed).

But the United States, Israel, Russia and China do have nukes.

Thus, one can only conclude that the Russians were talking about a nuclear engagement between them… and us.

It’s a realistic possibility also put forth by survival specialist Joel Skousen in his documentary Strategic Relocation and a warning reiterated by a DHS Insider who claimed in June of 2013 that a World War was about to break out and would lead to the deaths of millions.

This is getting real folks. All signs point to a serious confrontation in our near future.

Reprinted with permission from SHTFplan.com.

At a recent school meeting in Grayslake, Illinois curriculum director Amanda August discusses the new federally mandated Common Core education standards, which are currently being implemented into school districts across the nation.

Here’s how we’re readying America’s children for a highly competitive globalized marketplace:

But even under the new Common Core… even if they said 3 X 4 was 11, if they were able to explain their reasoning and explain how they came up with their answer, really in words and in oral explanations, and they showed it in a picture but they just got the final number wrong, we’re really more focusing on the how and why.

It’s no matter if a student comes to the conclusion that 3 x 4 = 11. So long as they can explain how they made this erroneous determination they go home with an ‘A’.

Watch:

Is it any wonder that, as Michael Snyder notes, our high school students are as dumb as rock, failing to answer the most basic of questions? A study conducted by none other than Common Core shows just how far we’ve fallen at America’s pedagogic institutions:

• Only 60% of students knew that WWI was fought between 1900 and 1950 — they only had to guess the half century!
• One in four high schoolers think Columbus discovered the New World after 1750
• On the multiple choice test, less than half of high schoolers knew when the Civil War was fought. They didn’t even need to know exact dates, just that it was sometime between 1850 and 1900.
• 40% of students could not identify the name of the ocean on the eastern side of the United States.
• Nearly 60% of students could not identify the two major political parties.
• When asked who is in charge of the Executive Branch of the United States, 70% of high school students got the wrong answer.
• Fully 75% of high school students failed to identify the First President of the United States

Read the rest of the article

]]> http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/08/mac-slavo/3-x-4-11/feed/ 0 http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/08/mac-slavo/when-will-the-riots-begin/ http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/08/mac-slavo/when-will-the-riots-begin/#comments Wed, 14 Aug 2013 04:01:00 +0000 Mac Slavo http://www.lewrockwell.com/?post_type=article&p=448665 Continue reading →]]> When will the breakdown of the system begin?

If you’ve been paying attention, then you’ll likely agree with contrarian economist Jim Willie. The breakdown is happening right here and now – it’s already in progress.

Most Americans haven’t realized it just yet, but everything including our economic, financial, monetary and political systems are in full meltdown mode. It was so bad in 2008, in fact, that Congressional members were warned that if they failed to stabilize the financial system there would be tanks in the streets.

With nearly 50 million Americans on food stamps, more than half of all able-bodied adults out of work, prices for essential goods progressively inflating, consumer spending collapsing, and the government taking on unprecedented levels of debt, the fact of the matter is that nothing has been resolved. It’s only gotten worse.

Jim Willie warns that, while a collapse is already in the works, Americans have no clue how serious it really is.

They’ll know soon enough.

In my view we had a systemic breakdown in 2007.

Then we had a visible breakdown in 2008… Then we had a further breakdown in 2010 when Europe started to fracture. Then we got more breakdown in 2011 when QE was announced. Now we have further breakdown in 2013 with the gold market ambushes.

So, to say “When is the breakdown going to happen,” I usually have a sassy response to my clients: Where have you been? It’s in progress.

…

We’re leading up to a big event. 

We are having breakdowns in numerous structural elements of the financial system. 

They’re all breaking down.

We don’t know what the actual trigger is going to be. I’m pointing to Deutsche Bank. I think Deutsche Bank is possibly going to be the one big bank they cannot control and that’s where you’re going to get the big break down with contagion hitting numerous western banks and hitting numerous important markets like sovereign bonds.

So we’re leading to a climax. We’re getting a chain reaction of breakdown events. They’re in progress.

…

The ‘taper talk’ was a stress test to find out what in the world would break down, and the answer was everything!”

…

In the United States, we are going to have shortages across the board, and that includes gold and silver. 

Just think food and gasoline. 

That’s when the riots will start. 

You are going to see out of control chaos and the government stepping in to restore order. . . .

Shortages and price inflation are going to drive people out of their minds.

Via Steve Quayle

Watch as Greg Hunter of USA Watch Dog interviews The Golden Jackass: 

The American people, and the people of most western nations, have been living a life of relative peace and prosperity for the last several decades.

The majority have no idea how all of it has been made possible.

The almost unimaginable levels of debt and leverage that have been keeping the system afloat will, however, soon be revealed for the Ponzi scheme they really are.

And when it all comes crashing down millions of unsuspecting myrmidons will be totally blind sided.

They will have failed to prepare for a paradigm shift not seen since the early to mid 20th century, when economic instability and wars ravaged the entire globe, leaving tens of millions of people dead.

As Jim Willie and Greg Hunter note, the big event is coming.

Now is the time to stockpile those items that will be unavailable at almost any price when the severity of the collapse becomes apparent to everyone. Food to keep you alive for extended periods. Essential supplies that you can barter. Gold and silver as amechanism of exchange. Weapons and ammo to defend what’s yours.

We may not be able to predict what will happen or how widespread it will be, but having a well developed preparedness plan will, at the very least, give you a fighting chance at survival.

This is what it looks like when Americans rush for cheap TV’s, phones and video game systems on Black Friday – can you imagine what the scene will be when they’re fighting for food and clothing?

Reprinted with permission from SHTFplan.com.

Now Dr. Marc Faber of the Gloom, Boom and Doom Report is warning of an imminent stock market meltdown yet again.

Based on analysis of current stock market prices and the overall value of stock market indexes like the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones, Faber warns that, while we are seeing near all-time highs, the valuations are nothing but conjecture.

Looking at the makeup of the major indexes, it’s clear that their high values have become dependent on a small number of companies. A peak into what’s happening behind the scenes, however, shows that scores of other companies are being crushed because of weak earnings and a poor forwarding looking economic outlook.

This, according to Dr. Doom, is remarkably similar to what we saw in the days and weeks leading up to the 1987 crash.

It’s a recipe for disaster.

[In 1987] we had a very powerful rally, but also earnings were no longer rising substantially and the market became very overbought and the final rally into August 25th occurred with a diminishing number of stock hitting 52 week highs. In other words, the new high list was contracting and we had several breaks in different stocks.

And if you look at the last two days, it’s remarkable.

We’re close to the all-time highs at 1,709 on the S&P [500] and yesterday and the day before there were 170 new 52-week lows.

That’s a very high figure.

…

[By the end of this year I see the market closing] lower than today.

Maybe 20%. Maybe more.

                                                     (Watch at CNBC)

For those invested in stock markets, it may be time to take a short break. Based on recent earnings, current economic sentiment, and continued degradation in national employment figures, there is a serious disconnect between what Wall Street wants you to think and what’s actually happening on Main Street.

This may not be the “collapse” that the U.S. government has been preparing for, but a stock market downturn of this magnitude could well wreak havoc all over the world, and for all we know could be the trigger for widespread calamity.

Just as we saw in 2008, when the selling starts, the panic follows. This means that investors will sell everything in sight first, and ask questions later. The effect, should markets slide, will be a price drop in just about every asset linked to paper trading markets, including gold, silver, commodities, tech, and retail. Even ammunition and firearms companies, which have seen huge demand in recent years, will likely take a hit.

Nothing will be spared when the herd goes into panic mode.

Reprinted with permission from SHTFplan.com.

They know your underwear size. They know where you drove your car today. They know what you put up on Facebook, texted to your wife and emailed to your friends. And they’ve done it all in the supposed interest of “national security.”

If, however, you were an Al Qaeda terrorist coordinating a large-scale prison break to free senior members of your mid-east terror organization, you would have been able to operate with impunity.

As you read the following report from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq keep in mind that the National Security Agency operates under authorization from Executive Order 12333.The agency was originally tasked not with “acquiring information concerning the domestic activities of United States persons,” but with analyzing information and data of foreign intelligence and counterintelligence value.

Hundreds of convicts, including senior members of al Qaeda, broke out of Iraq’s Abu Ghraib jail as comrades launched a military-style assault to free them, authorities said on Monday.

The deadly raid on the high-security jail happened as Sunni Muslim militants are gaining momentum in their insurgency against the Shi’ite-led government that came to power after the U.S. invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.

Suicide bombers drove cars packed with explosives to the gates of the prison on the outskirts of Baghdad on Sunday night and blasted their way into the compound, while gunmen attacked guards with mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

Other militants took up positions near the main road, fighting off security reinforcements sent from Baghdad as several militants wearing suicide vests entered the prison on foot to help free the inmates.

Ten policemen and four militants were killed in the ensuing clashes, which continued until Monday morning, when military helicopters arrived, helping to regain control.

…

“The number of escaped inmates has reached 500, most of them were convicted senior members of al Qaeda and had received death sentences,” Hakim Al-Zamili, a senior member of the security and defense committee in parliament, told Reuters.

“The security forces arrested some of them, but the rest are still free.”

One security official told Reuters on condition of anonymity: “It’s obviously a terrorist attack carried out by al Qaeda to free convicted terrorists with al Qaeda.”

Reuters

Two Words: EPIC FAIL.

While our government is supposedly preventing terrorism by searching grandma at airports, arresting kids for making jokes on the internet, deploying thousands of drones over America’s skies, and looking for lone wolves, they have failed at their absolute top priority: stopping actual terrorists from doing what terrorists do.

The fact that an unknown number of senior members of Al Qaeda, who we as a nation likely spent hundreds of millions of dollars and countless lives to capture, have been freed from prison in what can only be described as a premeditated coordinated attack is a complete failure of our foreign intelligence directives.

The challenge we now face is that senior Al Qaeda leaders who have likely been tortured and spent years in the hellhole of Abu Ghraib are now out in droves and they have one thing on their mind – to kill as many American men, women and children as they can before we catch or kill them.

Perhaps our spy agencies and the highly trained individuals monitoring domestic data streams would better serve the national security of the American people by turning their efforts back to what they were originally intended to do.

Will this be a wake up call for our Chief Executive and his security Czars to focus the attention of our signals intelligence and security community to the real threat facing America?

Or is identifying and stopping foreign terrorists no longer the priority?

As government prosecutors and Zimmerman’s defense team argued their case before the American public this week, the evidence strongly supported Zimmerman’s claims of self defense on the night of February 26, 2012. So much so that prosecutors attempted to introduce new charges such as “child abuse” mid-trial because it became clear that the jury would be hard-pressed to convict Zimmerman of murder.

Now, only a day before the jury is to convene for deliberations that will determine the fate of George Zimmerman, an unprecedented incident occurred in the court room, leaving one veteran legal analyst who was present to tweet that she has “never seen that in more than 30 years of court reporting.”

Speculation is raging that the judge in the George Zimmerman case could have been put under pressure by the Obama administration after she staged a bizarre outburst during which she interrogated Zimmerman while repeatedly silencing his lawyers.

…

The hostile exchange began when Judge Debra Nelson asked Zimmerman if he planned to testify.

Essentially, Judge Nelson told Zimmerman he had the “absolute right to remain silent” but then proceeded to demand he answer her questions interrogation-style while silencing his lawyers.

Defense attorney Don West twice objected to Nelson’s interrogation, prompting the judge to raised her voice and exclaim, “Your objection is overruled!” in a manner more befitting of an angry parent lecturing a child than a legal professional.

Both of Zimmerman’s lawyers appeared shocked as attorney Mark O’Mara asked under his breath, “what is going on?”

Several legal experts and observers said the outburst was unprecedented.

Via Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson of Infowars.com

In the video below, Judge Nelson clearly targets Zimmerman in a manner unfit for an American court of law. As noted by Jones and Watson, the exchange undermines Zimmerman’s, “right to remain silent” and makes it “appear as though he and his attorneys are not firm in their convictions.” And the jury saw all of it, suggesting that the fix really is in, and that the justice system is pulling out all the stops to ensure a conviction.

Watch the heated exchange as Judge Nelson confronts George Zimmerman in an unprecedented display of improper procedure during a MURDER trial that left his attorneys bewildered and without recourse.

Infowars Continues:

Former Senatorial candidate Richard Rivette also expressed his shock at the judge’s behavior.

“This judge is an idiot. I spent five years investigating high profile capital cases defending people from the death penalty, and worked for the Federal judiciary as an independent investigator on other cases. No judge ever inquires as to whether a defendant will testify until the entire defense case is presented. If the defense rests and does not call the defendant then the judge knows there will be no testimony. If the defense calls the defendant then that’s when the judge finds out. They have to get through the entire case first. To see if it is valid after prosecution cross-examines their witnesses and experts as to whether a defendant SHOULD testify, which is decided in private not in public, and NOT on the record. By doing this, the judge has undermined a portion of Zimmerman’s credibility. He looks like he is waffling and this is normal judge/defendant questioning, which it is NOT,” said Rivette.

Respondents to the story at the National Review Online also expressed their view that Zimmerman was being railroaded.

“A fix is in from the administration to find Zimmerman guilty regardless of what it takes,” commented one.

It is apparent that Debra Nelson is not an impartial judge presiding over this case, but that she harbors her own position on what the outcome should be, or worse yet, that she has been “gotten to” by outside forces who are attempting to frame an innocent man (until proven guilty) of murder.

The motivations are unclear.

What is clear is that evidence has been suppressed in this trial and given this latest legal travesty, it’s evident that George Zimmerman has a huge bulls eye on his back.

Should George Zimmerman be found innocent of the charges brought against him, there is a strong possibility of riots such as those we saw in 1992 after four police officers were acquitted of wrong doing in the Rodney King trial. After thousands of social network exchanges that claim riots will result should Zimmerman be found innocent, perhaps officials fear that the situation would quickly devolve into widespread civil unrest, and maybe convicting Zimmerman, regardless of his innocence, is a small price to pay for such an outcome.

What’s not clear is where the machinations of government and global banking cartels will lead, and when.

But we know the breaking point is coming.

According to Shadow Stats founder John Williams, who has taken a unique approach to analyzing fundamental economic data well beyond official government statistics, we will soon begin to see the fruits of the monetary and financial games taking place behind the scenes.

Unfortunately, the end result is not going to be recovery. Far from it.  As Williams notes in his latest report, what we should expect is continued degradation throughout this year and into 2014, at which point a hyperinflationary environment will take hold.

We’re Beginning to Approach the End Game. 

Nothing is normal: not the economy, not the financial system, not the financial markets and not the political system.  The financial system still remains in the throes and aftershocks of the 2008 panic and near-systemic collapse, and from the ongoing responses to same by the Federal Reserve and federal government.  Further panic is possible andhyperinflation remains inevitable.

Typical of an approaching, major turning point in the domestic- and global-market perceptions, bouts of extreme volatility and instability have been seen with increasing frequency in the financial markets, including equities, currencies and the monetary precious metals (gold and silver).  Consensus market expectations on the economy and Federal Reserve policy also have been in increasing flux.  The FOMC and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have put forth a plan for reducing and eventually ending quantitative easing in the form of QE3.  The tapering or cessation of QE3 is contingent upon the U.S. economy performing in line with overly-optimistic economic projections provided by the Fed.  Initially, market reaction pummeled stocks, bonds and gold.

Underlying economic reality remains much weaker than Fed projections.  As actual economic conditions gain broader recognition, market sentiment should shift quickly towards no imminent end to QE3, and then to expansion of QE3.  The markets and the Fed are stuck with underlying economic reality, and, eventually, they will have to recognize same.  Business activity remains in continued and deepening trouble, and the Federal Reserve—despite currency-market platitudes to the contrary—is locked into quantitative easing by persistent problems now well beyond its control.  Specifically, banking-system solvency and liquidity remain the primary concerns for the Fed, driving the quantitative easing.  Economic issues are secondary concerns for the Fed; they are used as political cover for QE3.  That cover will continue for as long as the Fed needs it.

At the same time, rapidly deteriorating expectations for domestic political stability reflect widening government scandals, in addition to the dominant global-financial-market concern of there being no viable prospect of those controlling the U.S. government addressing the long-range sovereign-solvency issues of the United States government. 

All these factors, in combination, show the end game to be nearing.

The most visible and vulnerable financial element to suffer early in this crisis likely will be the U.S. dollar in the currency markets (all dollar references here are to the U.S. dollar, unless otherwise stated).  Heavy dollar selling should evolve into massive dumping of the dollar and dollar-denominated paper assets.

Dollar-based commodity prices, such as oil, should soar, accelerating the pace of domestic inflation.  In turn, that circumstance likely will trigger some removal of the U.S. dollar from its present global-reserve-currency status, which would further exacerbate the currency and inflation problems tied to the dollar.

This still-forming great financial tempest has cleared the horizon; its impact on the United States and those living in a dollar-based world will dominate and overtake the continuing economic and systemic-solvency crises of the last eight years.  The issues that never were resolved in the 2008 panic and its aftermath are about to be exacerbated.  Based on the precedents established in 2008, likely reactions from the government and the Fed would be to throw increasingly worthless money at the intensifying crises.  Attempts to save the system all have inflationary implications.  A domestic hyperinflationary environment should evolve from something akin to these crises before the end of next year (2014).

Excerpted by King World News via Steve Quayle              Originally published by ShadowStats.com

Such an environment, as has been previously noted by John Williams, will not just involve increased prices at our grocery stores or gas stations. It will be much more severe than that and have serious implications across our entire system of commerce.

There’s strong evidence that we’re going to see an intensified downturn ahead, but it won’t become a great depression until a hyper-inflation kicks in. That is because hyper-inflation will be very disruptive to the normal flow of commerce and will take you to really low levels of activity that we haven’t seen probably in the history of the Republic.

…

As the dollar breaks down, you’ll also likely see disruptions in supply chains, including shipments of food to grocery stores. People should consider maintaining stockpiles of basic goods needed for living, much as they would for a natural disaster.

The end result of our current trajectory is inevitable.

The target date according to Williams is somewhere around the end of 2014. This will be just the beginning and it won’t be a short-term event.

What we’re talking about here is a shift so drastic that life for the average Americanwill change significantly, with some theorists suggesting it will be so severe we may not be able to survive it.

If hyperinflation is the end game of this financial crisis, then it’s time to consider what becomes money when the US dollar collapses.

Look first to preparing yourself for an unavoidable disaster. This takes a focused plan that includes the stockpiling of essential goods like food and other supplies to get you through the initial breakdown. Furthermore, if hyperinflation is the end result, then you should be planning for a longer-duration crisis where traditional services andtransportation will break down, which means you need to have barterable assets,worthwhile labor skills, precious metals as a mechanism of exchange, a safe location, and a security plan to ensure your safety.

Time is running out. The mathematics of this is clear. The system is wholly unsustainable and we will soon understand what this really means.

In March of 2012 President Obama signed an executive order which, among other things, gives the federal government authority over every resource and infrastructure element in the United States.

The new order provides specific definitions for each of these essential infrastructure elements, indicating that all resources, not just those owned by large farms and businesses, are to be directly controlled by the government.

…

The signing of the National Defense Resources Preparedness executive order grants the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Labor, the Department of Defense and other agencies complete control of all US resources, including the ability to seize, confiscate or re-delegate resources, materials, services, and facilities as deemed necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense as delegated by the following agencies:

That the government would seize energy depots, large farms, water reservoirs, and infrastructure-critical factories in the midst of a widespread disaster is a given, but how far can they really go?

According to a detailed analysis by Code Green Prep, The Present Legal Support for Seizing our Food and other Supplies suggests they can go all the way, including what you have stocked in your home pantry.

…the President can order the military to do pretty much anything to anyone, at any time, for any reason.

Specifically, he can order the military to ‘restore public order’ – and you might wonder what ‘public order’ is. Truly, that’s a broad term capable of many meanings, and so too is the verb before the noun – ‘restore’. What types of things can he order the military to do to restore the public order? There’s no limit specified, so presumably whatever he (and he alone with no need to get approval from Congress) feels to be prudent, necessary, and appropriate.

The legal framework was partially outlined in the aforementioned executive order, but David Spero notes that it’s not the only law on the books:

Hoarding of Just About Anything Can Be Banned

…

These definitions are written in to the 1950 War and National Defense Defense (sic) Production Act, and so let’s see what the act itself has to say for itself.

Go directly to section 2072. That’s the key part from our perspective.

§2072. Hoarding of designated scarce materials

In order to prevent hoarding, no person shall accumulate (1) in excess of the reasonable demands of business, personal, or home consumption, or (2) for the purpose of resale at prices in excess of prevailing market prices, materials which have been designated by the President as scarce materials or materials the supply of which would be threatened by such accumulation. The President shall order published in the Federal Register, and in such other manner as he may deem appropriate, every designation of materials the accumulation of which is unlawful and any withdrawal of such designation.

In making such designations the President may prescribe such conditions with respect to the accumulation of materials in excess of the reasonable demands of business, personal, or home consumption as he deems necessary to carry out the objectives of this Act [sections 2061 to 2170, 2171, and 2172 of this Appendix]. This section shall not be construed to limit the authority contained in sections 101 and 704 of this Act [sections 2071 and 2154 of this Appendix].

So the President can simply say that anything more than (for example) a week’s supply of food (and all the other things listed) is an amount ‘in excess of the reasonable demands of personal consumption’ and then order the Army to impound everything you have in excess of that amount.

…

We don’t want to get into the deeper darker conspiracy theories of what FEMA and HSD might be and do in the future, but we would like to be reassured that these theories truly are as impossible as we hope them to be.

We have no answer to these questions. But we wish we did, because we can readily see a future scenario where the government (which, of course, always ‘knows best’) decides the best thing to do is to centralize all food and other survival resources – all the stuff listed above in the Executive Order – and then distribute it ‘fairly’ as it sees fit.

And, in case you didn’t read the first part of this two-part article, distributing ‘fairly’ is a code phrase that means ‘we’ll take as much as we can from people who have the thing, and then give it to people who don’t have the thing’. The people without the thing doubtless feel that is fair, but how do you feel, as someone more likely to be losing your preps, while seeing people who laughed at you for being a prepper now having your preps passed over to them?

[emphasis added]

Full Reports via Code Gree Prep

Part 1: Preppers Beware : Our “Hoarding” Can Be Deemed IllegalPart 2: The Present Legal Support for Seizing our Food and other Supplies

It should be clear from the laws that are already in effect that the government has given itself a legal pretext for confiscating anything they so choose in the midst of an emergency.

During Hurricane Katrina we saw officials go door-to-door to disarm Americans against their will and in violation of the Second Amendment. They had no authority to do so in a legal sense. They did it anyway.

Should an emergency befall the United States, the military, national guard, and local police operating under orders from the Department of Homeland Security will have carte blanche to do as they please.

For evidence of this look no further than Boston, Massachusetts just a few short months ago when the government declared nothing short of a de facto state of martial law. Militarized police forcibly entered the homes of hundreds of Americans without permission.

In a widespread emergency where supply lines have been threatened and millions of Americans are without essential resources because they failed to prepare, the government will swoop in and attempt to take complete control.

They will enter our homes and search them without a warrant. They will confiscate contraband. And they will take any ‘excessive resources’ that you may have accumulated. This includes food, toiletries, precious metals and anything else emergency planners and officials deem to be a scarce material.

Expect it. Prepare for it.

The Best of Mac Slavo

Though statistics prove time and again that disarming a free people leads to more violent crime and the potential for mass government democide, it hasn’t stopped President Barrack Obama and his Congressional entourage from doing everything in their power to make it more difficult for Americans to legally own firearms.

Citing the Sandy Hook mass shooting last year, democrats on the hill have claimed that we must restrict gun ownership and strip the Second Amendment for the safety of our children and the general public.

But a new report commissioned by the White House titled Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-related Violence suggests what many self defense gun proponents have been saying for years. The report, ordered under one of President Obama’s 23 Executive Orderssigned in the wake of the Sandy Hook incident, asked the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the National Research Council and other federal agencies to identify the “most pressing problems in firearms violence.”

To the surprise of the authors and those who would no doubt have used the report to further restrict access to personal defense firearms, the study found that gun ownership actually saves lives and those who have a firearm at their disposal improve their chances of survival and reduce their chance of injury in the event they are confronted by a violent criminal:

Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year…

…

The estimate of 3 million defensive uses per year is based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys. The former estimate of 108,000 is difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.

A different issue is whether defensive use of guns, however numerous or rare they may be, are effective in preventing injury to the gun wielding crime victim. Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was “used” by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self protective strategies.

Full Study available at the National Academy of Sciences

Via: Blacklisted News / Story Leak

Consider that 3 million people use a gun to defend themselves from harm every year. This means that over 8,000 Americans every day act with potentially deadly force to prevent injury or death to themselves or a family member.

In addition to overwhelming evidence that owning a gun reduces your chances of injury when attacked, regardless of whether you fire your gun or not, the new report proves that there has been a decades’ long obfuscation of national statistics that have been used to determine the importance of guns in self defense. Up until this study became available, anti-gun politicians often cited figures that indicated that just 108,000 people a year used guns in self defense. The new study suggests that those numbers were off by over 2500%.

The new White House report coupled with evidence from Australia, Britain and Canada shows that reduction of personal gun ownership is a road to more violence, injury and death.

The President commissioned this study in the hopes of finding a reason to take more guns from law abiding Americans.

What it found, however, is that the answer to gun violence in America is… arming more Americans.

The Best of Mac Slavo

If you’ve been watching U.S. financial markets the last few weeks you may have come to the conclusion that something is amiss and that there exists a major disconnect between what’s happening on Wall Street and what average Americans are experiencing on Main Street.

While analysts and experts point to the stock market as a sign of economic stability, today’s massive downswing should make it clear that the system is anything but stable.

The economy, the financial markets, and the U.S. monetary system are in uncharted waters, and as was noted yesterday after the Fed’s FOMC announcement, there is no way out of this mess.

The Federal Reserve and the US Treasury have taken it upon themselves to save us, but their plan seems to be disintegrating right before our eyes.

According to former Congressman Ron Paul, it could get much worse with far reaching ramifications across the whole of the U.S. and global economies. At this rate, if we continue on our current trajectory of monetary expansion, it is only a matter of time before the US dollar buckles. And when it does, it’s going to create widespread disturbances in pricing and valuation models across the entire sphere of investments, goods and services.

The long-term is something you can get a handle on.

The short-term… I was never very good on short-term, whether it’s the stock market or what government will do. It’s just all over the place.

I think if you look at the record of the value of the dollar since the Fed’s been in existence, we have about a 2 cent dollar. You know, gold used to be $20 an ounce, so I would say the record is rather clear on the side of commodity money.

History is on our side… 6,000 years of history shows that it maintains value and paper always self destructs.

I would say, long-term, as long as we have excessive spending and excessive computerized money, you’re going to see gold go up… and it [gold] could go to infinity because the dollar could collapse totally.

Video from The Daily Sheeple via Infowars:

To be clear, Ron Paul isn’t just talking about the price of gold going to infinity.

In the event of a collapse of the U.S. dollar we’re going to see the price of all commodities go to infinity. Any physical asset of actual value is going to go to ‘infinity’ as it relates to the US dollar. Zimbabwe is a recent example, where the price of a loaf of bread literally reached over a trillion ‘dollars,’ when just a few years before it cost a couple Zimbabwe bucks.

When the system collapses, commodities become money. It’s as simple as that.

This is why precious metals have been in such high demand lately. This is why emergency food distributors ran out of food recently. And this is why the price of ammunition and rifles has gone through the roof.

It is an issue of confidence.

Confidence in the fair functioning of financial markets. Confidence in our central bank’s directives to maintain a stable currency. Confidence that our political system will operate within the rule of law.

It should be obvious by recent market gyrations and panic buying of certain commodity goods that confidence among the American public is being lost.

Once it takes hold, and disruptions to our system of commerce become evident to the general public, we will witness a never before seen panic from sea to shining sea as Americans fight for anything worth something.

It’s coming, whether you believe it or not. And it’s better to be a year, month or day early, then a minute late.

The Best of Mac Slavo

When the Cypriot government forced account holders to cover bank losses earlier this year most of the world assumed this was a one-off event, limited only to the people of Cyprus.

Though warnings urging depositors to get their money out of banks spread across the world, few have taken them seriously.

Perhaps now they’ll reconsider.

We’re all familiar with bail-outs, as in the government rescuing failed institutions, namely banks, by injecting them with tens of billions of dollars to prevent collapse.

But have you ever heard of a bail-in?

Japan’s Financial Services Agency will enact new rules that will forced failed bank losses on investors, if needed, via a mechanism known as a “bail-in,” according to The Nikkei. Mitsubishi UFJ (MTU), Mizuho Financial (MFG) and Sumitomo Mitsui (SMFG) are among those proposing amendments to allow them to issue the types of preferred shares or subordinated bonds that would be used in such cases, the report noted.

Cyprus was a test run. It worked.

This is now the official policy of the country of Japan, and is a serious consideration throughout the Eurozone and the United States.

Euro zone finance ministers will discuss on Thursday how to decide which creditors will lose money and in what order during future bank rescues by the bloc’s bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism.

Just so we’re clear, we are all bank creditors by these definitions, thus the regulations being created apply not to just large bond holders, but every individual depositor.

Notice how they didn’t say “in case future bank rescues are necessary.” That’s because they know what’s coming.

The collapse of the global financial system is a foregone conclusion and it has just been confirmed by finance ministers around the world.

When the next banking crisis hits the United States you can be assured that creditors (i.e. individual depositors) will be forced to ‘bail them in.’

Given that that billionaire insiders are rapidly unloading millions of shares of financial stocks as we speak, there is a strong possibility that this scenario may soon unfold.

So, if you’ve got any significant amount of money at financial institutions, you’d better think twice about how safe it is.

Of course, this is the United States of America, where nothing of the sort could ever happen. According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, here in the U.S. the crisis is contained and poses no risks to the broader economy or financial markets.

So, you can probably just move along and ignore this warning.

Nothing to see here… It’s just Japan and Europe, after all, and they are all the way on the other side of the ocean.

The Best of Mac Slavo

Back in 1984, well before most Americans had ever heard of mobile phones or used a computer, the Federal government was hard at work mining whatever data they could get their hands on.

President Reagan was in office and given his staunch stance on limited government no one could possibly have suspected that he, of all people, would be the Commander in Chief presiding over a fledgling surveillance state.

Despite the ignorance of our populace and attempts to keep the American people in the dark, one lone wolf on the floor of the Congress had the prescient insight to understand what was really going on… and where it would one day lead.

He’s one of the original conspiracy theorists… referred to by many is a quack or a nut for his non-mainstream views of government and his constant warnings of tyranny on our doorstep.

Today his ‘theories’ have been proven to be 100% fact.

Watch this short video of Ron Paul recorded on September 6, 1984 and don’t ever say we weren’t warned.

It’s now common knowledge that federal government computers are routinely used to compare lists…

Computer surveillance seems appropriate for 1984, and unfortunately, the wave of the future.

…

Millions of tax dollars are spent on this type of computer surveillance.

A disgusting procedure for a professed free society.

…

The irony is that it’s done by an administration that brags about its limited government philosophy.

And the little condemnation we hear comes from those that would involve government in every jot and tittle of our economic lives.

Why is it that it’s so difficult to defend freedom consistently across the board?

Via Liberty Blitzkrieg and The Daily Crux:

 (Watch at Youtube from The Daily Sheeple)

They were doing it 30 years ago with limited processing capabilities and data storage.

Today, the sky’s the limit.

The Best of Mac Slavo

As local, state and federal governments look to enact legislation to restrict the ownership, transfer and sale of semi-automatic weapons and accessories, pro-second amendment supporters are coming up with new and innovative ways to skirt a system hellbent on destroying their ability to protect themselves and their families.

In the following video, produced by liberal-leaning internet mouthpiece Mother Jones, reporter Brian Schatz goes inside (and deep undercover) to a southern California “build party” to expose how – gasp – anyone with the desire to do so can produce their own full functioning, untraceable semi-automatic AK-47.

In his opening statement, Schatz implies that the rifle itself is single handedly responsible for the violence and murder happening all over the world, leaving no question in his mind that the activities of gun build party goers are and have contributed to the abhorrent actions of psychopathic dictators, terrorists and criminals throughout history.

AK-47′s are the most widely distributed guns on the planet and the general weapon of choice in most genocides, proxy wars, uprisings, mass shootings and other varieties of violence.

And now, you too can own one by simply purchasing a “parts kit” available online, at gun shows, or from private sales.

Who needs 3-D guns when you can have the real thing?

The AK-47, perhaps the world’s best-known gun, is so easy to make and so hard to break that the Soviet-designed original has spawned countless variants, updated and modified versions churned out by factories all over the globe.

Although US customs laws ban importing the weapons, parts kits – which include most original components of a Kalashnikov variant – are legal. So is reassembling them, as long as no more than 10 foreign-made components are used and they are mounted on a new receiver, the box-shaped central frame that holds the gun’s key mechanics.

There are no fussy irritations like, say, passing a background check to buy a kit. And because we’re assembling the guns for our own “personal use,” whatever that may entail, we’re not required to stamp in serial numbers.

These rifles are totally untraceable, and even under California’s stringent assault weapons ban, that’s perfectly within the law.

Watch how you can build your own AK-47 (or other semi-automatic self defense rifle) without the government ever knowing you did it:

(Video via BeforeItsNews; Watch at Youtube)

As restrictive gun legislation, such as banning accessories or requiring registration of ammunition, is attempted across the nation, more Americans will turn to “underground” methods of making sure they have the means necessary to defend themselves from personal harm and the ever-looming possibility of a tyrannical overthrow of our country.

They can push.

But liberty minded Americans, many of whom still believe the right to bear arms is a fundamental tenet that no government can ever take away, will continue to push back.

The Best of Mac Slavo

It’s not a stretch to suggest that Americans are over medicated. In 2011 doctors across the nation wrote an astounding four billion medical prescriptions, amounting to an average of 13 prescriptions for every man, woman and child in the United States.

In the next few weeks the American Psychiatric Associations is releasing their updated fifth version their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5); the so-called ‘bible’ of psychiatric diagnoses. The new manual promises to take mental illness and the use of prescription drugs to a whole new level.

You may not be considered “crazy” or “mentally ill” today, but under the new guidelines experts say half of us will be diagnosed with a psychiatric condition in the future.

The odds will probably be greater than 50 percent, according to the new manual, that you’ll have a mental disorder in your lifetime.

…

The increasing number of disorders comes about because some “problems” that were not previously considered to be mental illness were reclassified as such by their inclusion in the DSM – and it is the DSM that functionally defines mental illness in the United States.

You see, in the DSM-5 the definitions for mental illness have been expanded to include a whole host of new symptoms and conditions.

For example, under the new guidelines if your 6- to 18-year-old child throws a temper tantrum from time to time or has a mood swing, a psychiatrist could diagnose the condition as a “Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder” requiring professional treatment. Keep in mind that in psychiatry “professional treatment” almost always means prescription drugs.

Are you over the age of 55 and have “senior moments” like forgetting where you put your keys? If so, then in all likelihood you have a neurocognitive disorder.

Do you stockpile food, supplies or other items in anticipation of a disaster? If so, you may have what’s called an obsessive compulsive hoarding disorder.

“The reality shows have raised awareness, but they tend to sensationalize the patients, and they rarely talk about treatment.”

“The big change,” Dr. Saxena said, “will be an official recognition of hoarding as an important neuropsychic disorder that will increase screening, increase detection and diagnosis, and refer patients in for treatment.”

While the new hoarding guidelines don’t specifically target “preparedness,” the fact is that some ‘professionals’ have already suggested that if you have any level of anxiety about the possibility of a major catastrophe, or your motivation for preparing for unforeseen events includes a distrust of the government, then you’ve got psychological problems.

Now, with the DSM-5, they can officially diagnose you as crazy.

Dr. Allen Frances, the author of Saving Normal, says that the new requirements will, ”turn everyday anxiety, eccentricity, forgetting and bad eating habits into mental disorders.”

The changes being introduced by the DSM-5 are nothing short of a sweeping overhaul of our mental health care system, and they will have effects that many experts can’t even fathom. But those behind the DSM, who work very closely with government experts, know exactly what they’re doing.

Let’s connect the dots a little bit to get an idea of how this is going to have a direct impact on your life in the very near future.

Under the new regulations set forth by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, certain groups of Americans like school children, seniors, those on government health plans, active-duty military personnel, and veterans will be required to submit to mental health screenings.

Page 1137 of the The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provides grants for the operation of school-based health centers required to include “mental health and substance abuse disorder assessments” for children and adolescents.

On page 1191 is found a section on Mental Health Screening that refers to a program called “Healthy Aging, Living Well”. Persons ages 55-64 are being targeted for screening activities that can include “mental health/behavioral health and substance use disorders.”

Obamacare requires mental health services for many other groups.

These include Medicaid recipients, addicts, mothers with postpartum depression, the elderly, and soldiers. There’s even has a section called “Mental Health in Small Businesses” which awards grants to small businesses willing to provide workplace wellness programs that encourage “healthy lifestyles, healthy eating, increased physical activity and improved mental health.”

Are you starting to see where this is going?

You’ll be forced by your child’s school, by the government, and even your private employer to be involuntarily screened. And the psychiatrists who’ll be performing the diagnoses will be utilizing the criteria outlined in the DSM-5.

According to the afforementioned statistics, there’s a 50% chance that those being screened will be found to have some type of mental health condition.

But that’s just the beginning.

As we know, once diagnosed, failure to take the treatment (e.g. medication) prescribed could then be deemed unlawful behavior, especially in the case of children.

Not possible in America? Think again:

Earlier this year, administrators from the Berne-Knox-Westerlo school district called Albany County Child Protective Services, alleging child abuse when the Carrolls said they wanted to take Kyle off the drug.

As a result, the Carrolls are now on a statewide list of alleged child abusers, and they have been thrust into an Orwellian family court battle to clear their name and to ensure their child isn’t removed from their home. “It’s beyond the point of whether he should be on it. Now it’s the point of them telling us what we’re going to do,” said Michael Carroll. “They’re telling me how to raise my child.”

…

“The schools are now using child protective services to enforce their own desires and their own policies,” said David Lansner, a New York City lawyer who has seen cases similar to the Carrolls’. “The parents’ authority is being undermined when people have to do what some public official wants,” Lansner added. “This thing is so scary,”

It’s already happening, and with nearly 4 million children every year being (mis)diagnosed with ADHD, we can expect the numbers to rise significantly under the new DSM guidelines.

It’s important to understand, however, that they’re not just targeting our children. They’re coming after all of us.

The DSM-5, coupled with Obama Care legislation, will allow the government unprecedented control over lives.

One such example is the targeting of America’s gun owners. Legislation is in the works in many states, as well as the U.S. Congress, that would require mental health screenings for firearms ownership. Should these bills pass, then about half of America’s gun owners would immediately lose their right to bear arms for any manner of “disorders” that could include stress, anxiety, depressed mood or even poor eating habits!

And while gun control proponents would applaud the victory, what they fail to understand is that by green-lighting such a government intrusion, they are setting themselves up for future legislation that may restrict their own rights for activities that may include maintaining employment or caring for their children.

Once a diagnoses is made the government will then have the ability to enforce it at the barrel of a gun.

If your child is diagnosed with ADHD or separation anxiety disorder, and you refuse to feed them their prescription cocktail, then the government will step in and take your children under the guise of protecting them… from you!

Likewise, you may one day be forced to be screened by your employer and found to be mentally ill (remember, 50/50 shot!). If you refuse the professional treatment that’s recommended, you could lose your job as a result. And because the Department of Homeland Security has been busy creating a Domestic No-Work List all prospective employers will know of your condition and your refusal to seek professional treatment.

The possibilities, now that the door has been opened, are endless.

The Best of Mac Slavo

Leading up to 2013 many solar researches forecast that activity on the sun would be heating up as it transitioned into its solar maximum cycle, something that occurs about every 11 years.

New data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which monitors solar activity in conjunction with other agencies and space projects, indicates that this wave of powerful solar storms may be starting.

Solar storms, which are responsible for emitting Coronal Mass Ejections (CME’s), come in waves. In the last 48 hours, the NOAA has identified multiple, powerful X-class solar flares that have been emitted on the eastern tip of the sun. While the sun regularly hurls enormous clouds of super-heated plasma into space, the associated solar flares are usually not powerful enough to cause any disruptions to earth.

X-class flares, however, are extremely powerful and when the charged particles released by the sun slam into the earth they can wreak havoc. They’ve been responsible for everything from interruptions to critical satellite services like global positioning systems to widespread power outages. In 1989 an X-class solar flare was responsible for taking Quebec’s hydro power stations offline, leaving millions of people without electricity.

According to Space Weather reports, activity on the sun has surged over the past two days, and there’s a 40% chance that it’s going to continue through this week, just as the sun moves into a position where it can send a flare directed at earth.

While the three solar flares recorded in recent days are on the lower end of the classification scale, the sunspot area which produced them is reportedly layered with a large and complicated magnetic field. This leaves the door open for the possibility that a future flare emitted from this region could be significantly more powerful than its predecessors.

The primary concern with X-class flares is that one of them could potentially become a solar Killshot, or an earth directed flare so powerful that it could literally take down large portions of the global power grid in a cascading electrical outage resulting from highly charged particles slamming into electrical lines and transformers.

Solar Activity Surges

A sunspot on the sun’s eastern limb is crackling with powerful X-class solar flares.

AR1748 announced itself during the early hours of May 13th with an X1.7-class eruption (0217 UT), quickly followed by an X2.8-class flare (1609 UT) and an X3.2-class flare (0117 UT on May 14). These are the strongest flares of the year so far, and they signal a significant increase in solar activity.

NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of more X-flares during the next 24 hours.

All of these flares have produced strong flashes of extreme ultraviolet radiation.

Here is the view of the latest eruption, which registered X3.2 on the Richter Scale of Solar Flares, from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.

The explosions have also hurled coronal mass ejections (CMEs) into space. Coronagraphs on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory are tracking the clouds.

When the action began on May 13th, the instigating sunspot was hidden behind the sun’s eastern limb, but now solar rotation is bringing the active region into view.

Sunspot AR1478 is not particularly large, but it is complex, with many dark core scattered through its zone of influence. This is a sign of a complicated overlying magnetic field. When tangled lines of magnetic force criss, cross, and reconnect–voila!

Via: Space Weather

While the probability of a Killshot flare striking earth is quite low, they do happen.

In addition to the many recorded events over the last century and a half that were responsible for electrical outages, fires, and other disruptions, a modern day Killshot class flare occurred in 2003, leaving many scientists stunned.

Physicists in New Zealand have shown that last November’s record-breaking solar explosion was much larger than previously estimated, thanks to innovative research using the upper atmosphere as a gigantic x-ray detector.

…

Researchers from the University of Otago used radio wave-based measurements of the x-rays’ effects on the Earth’s upper atmosphere to revise the flare’s size from a merely huge X28 to a “whopping” X45, say researchers Neil Thomson, Craig Rodger, and Richard Dowden. X-class flares are major events that can trigger radio blackouts around the world and long-lasting radiation storms in the upper atmosphere that can damage or destroy satellites. The biggest previous solar flares on record were rated X20, on 2 April 2001 and 16 August 1989.

“This makes it more than twice as large as any previously recorded flare, and if the accompanying particle and magnetic storm had been aimed at the Earth, the damage to some satellites and electrical networks could have been considerable,” says Thomson. Their calculations show that the flare’s x-ray radiation bombarding the atmosphere was equivalent to that of 5,000 Suns, though none of it reached the Earth’s surface, the researchers say.

It’s doesn’t happen often, but when it does, the effects on Earth are, as Neil Thomson notes, “considerable.”

So much so that a flare powerful enough to cause a grid-down infrastructure collapse would have an immediate impact on day-to-day life, including thehalting of just-in-time delivery systems for essential goods like food and fuel.

Estimates suggest that an infrastructure collapse of this magnitude, similar to an EMP attack, would leave something on the order of 9 out of 10 Americans dead within one year.

While we may not be able to predict when the next Killshot will hit earth, we can be prepared for it.

Perhaps we’ll never see such an event in our lifetimes – probability suggests we won’t.

But what if we do?

 The Best of Mac Slavo

Which asset is more secure than money in the bank?

The answer is simple.

It’s the asset that will still have value when the money or the bank collapse.

All over the world, when people have been faced with the prospect of having their savings wiped out or confiscated they have turned to hard assets – physical goods they could hold in their possession and trade if necessary – as protection.

Argentina, a country that is no stranger to economic hard times and hyperinflation, gives us a prime example of what becomes money when the system collapses.

At an inflation rate of 25%, while their currency loses significant purchasing power, Argentines have made a mad rush into gold, silver, and other tangible goods that retain their barterable value.

Like many Greeks, who have headed to the countryside to grow their own food in the midst of complete economic destruction, farmers in Argentina are hoarding the one tangible investment they know will not lose value, no matter what their currency does.

With world food demand on the rise, growers in the Pampas grain belt are filling their silos with soy rather than converting their crops into pesos, a currency that hit a new all-time low in informal trade this week.

Considering Argentina’s high inflation, clocked at about 25 percent by private economists, “money in the bank” is not as secure as storing soybeans next to their fields, many say.

“We are going to hang onto our soy. One can see higher prices ahead,” said Jose Plazibat, a partner with the firm of Bandurria and Plazibat Brothers, which farms more than 3,000 hectares near the town of Chacabuco in Buenos Aires province.

With their currency in meltdown and food demand around the world rising, these farmers understand where real value comes from.

• Their food can’t be lost in the stock market.
• It’s intrinsic worth cannot be vaporized in a banking collapse.
• And they do not need to wait for anyone to deliver it to them, as they hold it in their personal possession.

Hoarding commodities – not the paper receipts that represent your ownership, but the actual physical good – is a powerful diversification strategy, and one that is a natural response to times of uncertainty and government run amok:

Argentina is going through the classic stages of economic collapse.

The government seized all pensions. They are destroying everything that gives the people incentive to be a society that emerges from the cooperation of everyone.

When government turns against its own people, even as the USA is currently doing, you end up with deflation insofar as the economy collapses and wages are not available, while hoarding emerges as does barter.

source: Martin Armstrong

This strategy of buying commodities at lower prices today to consume at higher prices tomorrow can be implemented on a micro-economic personal scale in your own home. Doing so, especially with health and nutrition considerations, will not only provide you with long-term cost savings as global currencies continue to lose purchasing power, but insulate you against the possibility of a rush for food in the event of an emergency or widespread economic instability.

Whether you choose to stock your long-term food pantry by going to a grocery store, grow your own food in your traditional or aquaponics garden, learn to preserve it yourself, or prefer to do your own food storage packing, the key is to develop a plan and implement it now.

The US dollar isn’t getting any stronger over the next 10 years.

But the rice, beans, wheat, and pasta you stockpile will still have the same exact intrinsic value a decade from now as they do today.

Last week President Obama said that his administration’s recent gun control push is merely “the first round,” suggesting that attempts to force Americans to submit to background checks, mental health screenings and gun registrations are only the beginning of a concerted effort designed to remove guns from the hands of as many people as possible. Executive actions taken at the end of April, which were designed to put an outright ban on the importation of gun accessories, magazine and ammunition, provide further evidence that gun control proponents will stop at nothing to limit access. Moreover, the President’s Homeland Security team, spearheaded by Secretary Janet Napolitano, is working overtly to indirectly disarm Americans by purchasing hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition in an attempt to dry up the retail ammunition supply market, a move Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) says is “intentional.”

The Second Amendment is under attack on all fronts through domestic regulation, foreign treaties, and legislative action on the federal, state and local level. Everywhere we turn, it seems, there are those who would supplant our fundamental right to defend our homes from predators and our freedom from oppressive government.

In Austin, Texas, however, there is a different kind of movement afoot. It’s one that promises to change the very landscape of gun ownership, and it’s got lawmakers around the world quaking in their boots.

After months of development and testing, Austin-based Defense Distributed has produced the first ever 3-D printed firearm, and has successfully tested it with live ammunition. The project’s lead developer Cody Wilson says the Defense Distributed collective of gun access advocates will release the blueprints for the printable gun to the public for free.

It’s a move that New York’s democrat Senator Chuck Schumer says is “stomach churning.”

It’s called the Liberator, and it’s been produced solely with the use of a 3D printer purchased on Ebay for about $8000.

While it looks like a child’s toy, be assured that this piece of plastic is designed to be a killing machine and is capable of firing a standard .380 caliber round. If you have a 3D printer and the plans to print it, you can do so with just sixteen easy-to-assemble pieces:

Watch the Liberator: Live Fire Test:

Video via Infowars

As you may have guessed, lawmakers are already working on legislation to ban the technology, though it is unclear if they intend to ban just the production of 3-D printed firearms, or the printers themselves, which are available starting at about $1000.

The Liberator may look like a toy, but “this gun can fire regular bullets,” Schumer said, calling for legislation outlawing the technology’s weapons potential.

“Security checkpoints, background checks and gun regulations will do little good if criminals can print their own plastic firearms at home and bring those firearms through metal detectors with no one the wiser,” Israel said in a statement.

To Schumer, the ramifications of make-your-own untraceable and undetectable weapons are “stomach-churning.”

“Now anyone, a terrorist, someone who is mentally ill, a spousal abuser, a felon, can essentially open a gun factory in their garage,” Schumer said. “It must be stopped.”

They can make all the laws they want. This technology has now been let out of the bag, and stomach churned gun control advocates can push as hard as they want. It will not stop the plans for The Liberator from being disseminated to anyone who wants them.

Defense Distributed and the many others working on open-source 3-D printing kits for firearms and accessories have changed the world. And there’s no going back.

You can download the blueprint for The Liberator at DefCad.org and learn more about the Wiki Weapons project at Defense Distributed.

Watch: Dawn of the Wiki Weapons

Never one to let a crisis go to waste, Senator Harry Reid has introduced a new bill that would require background checks for anyone purchasing “explosive materials” or “powders” commonly used to manufacture ammunition and fireworks.

The Boston bombers utilized black powder sourced from common fireworks to manufacture the bombs that left 3 people dead and scores wounded in the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil since September 11th.

Senator Frank Lautenberg, who wrote the bill, claims the incident in Boston, “shows that background checks are needed for explosive materials.”

“It defies common sense that anyone, even a terrorist, can walk into a store in America and buy explosive powders without a background check or any questions asked.”

“Requiring a background check for an explosives permit is a small price to pay to ensure the safety of our communities.”

The purchase of black powder in amounts over 50 pounds already requires a background check, but the new bill would lower the thresholds and will also include “smokeless powders,” which are used for the production of ammunition.

The move by Reid and Lautenberg, who both supported President Obama’s failed comprehensive national gun control overhaul last month, has Second Amendment advocates concerned. According to The Truth About Guns the language of the bill, which is yet to be made available, may place stringent restrictions on the purchase of certain quantities of ammunition:

Depending on the bill’s language, it would include not only loose gunpowder (such as that used by handloaders) but could also cover standard ammunition cartridges.

Lautenberg and Reid are trying to label these propellants as “explosives” in the wake of the Boston bombings and use that tragedy to limit general access to ammunition and reloading components . . .

It’s a back door way to make gun ownership more difficult and possibly put smaller local ammunition manufacturers out of business.

Because a potential terrorist could conceivably take apart ammunition and use the propellant to manufacture a bomb, ammunition purchases containing enough powder to exceed the new threshold set forth by the bill will likely require a federal background check, similar to purchasing a firearm.

Reid and Lautenberg will also give the Attorney General power to forbid the sale of explosive powders to anyone who is believed to be purchasing it for the purpose of terrorism, a term that has been broadly defined in contemporary America to include anyone who may have second amendment oriented views, reads survival literature, home schools their kids, prefers precious metals over centrally printed Federal Reserve notes, or expresses a fear of big government.

The bill may never make it past committee, but it introduces a dangerous new strategy that shifts the gun-control focus away from firearms and targets gun accessories, magazines, and ammunition.