Top U.S. General: We Are On The Brink Of War With Russia

Yet Another Omnious Cloud Turns Day into Night in Texas

Living In A Van Down By The River – Time To Face The True State Of The Middle Class In America

Do you remember the old Saturday Night Live sketches in which comedian Chris Farley portrayed a motivational speaker that lived in a van down by the river?  Unfortunately, this is becoming a reality for way too many Americans.  As the middle class has shrunk and the cost of living has increased, a lot of people have decided to quite literally “live on the road”.  Whether it is a car, a truck, a van, a bus or an RV, an increasing number of Americans are using their vehicles as their homes.  Just recently, someone that I know took a trip down the west coast of the United States and stayed at a number of campgrounds along the way.  What she discovered was that a lot of people were actually living at these campgrounds.  Of course there are some that actually prefer that lifestyle, but many others are doing it out of necessity.

Earlier this week, Circa.com posted a story about “the van life”.  One of the individuals that they featured was a recent graduate of the University of Southern California named Stephen Hutchins.  Without much of an income at the moment, he decided that the best way to cut expenses was to live in his van…

“The main expenses are insurance for the van, which is like $60 a month,” said Hutchins. “Then, I have a storage unit for like $60.”

That puts his monthly rent at $120. The van cost him just $125 at an auction.

Living in a van is certainly not the most comfortable way to go, and many of you are probably wondering how he performs basic tasks such as cooking and bathing.  Well, it turns out that he makes extensive use of public facilities…

He showers at the gym, cooks on a portable stove on a sidewalk (he stores his butane at his friends’ place nearby) and uses wifi at nearby coffeeshops.

For a while such a lifestyle may seem like “an adventure”, but after a while it will start to get really old.  And not a lot of women are going to be excited about dating a man that lives in a van, and you certainly wouldn’t want to raise a family in a vehicle.

Sadly, just like during the last economic crisis many Americans are getting to the point where staying in their homes may not be an option.  Just check out the following excerpt from a recent New York Post article entitled “The terrifying signs of a looming housing crisis“…

The number of New Yorkers applying for emergency grants to stay in their homes is skyrocketing — as the number of people staying in homeless shelters reached an all-time high last weekend, records show.

There were 82,306 applications for one-time emergency grants to prevent evictions in fiscal 2016, up 26 percent from 65,138 requests the previous year, according to the Mayor’s Management Report.

I put a couple of phrases in that quote in bold because I really wanted you to notice a couple of things.

First of all, it is very alarming to hear that the number of New Yorkers staying in homeless shelters “reached an all-time high” last weekend.  I thought that we were supposed to be in an “economic recovery”, but apparently things in New York are rapidly getting worse.

Secondly, the fact that applications for emergency grants are up 26 percent compared to last year is another indication of how rough things are right now for average families in New York.  We all remember what happened when millions of families lost their homes to foreclosure across the nation during the last financial crisis, and nobody should want to see a repeat of that any time soon.

During this election season, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would like all of us to believe that the economy is doing just fine, but that is not true at all.  Even using the doctored numbers that the government gives us, Barack Obama is solidly on track to be the only president in all of U.S. history to never have a single year of 3 percent GDP growth, and he has had two terms to try to do that.

Gallup CEO Jim Clifton is also quite skeptical of this “economic recovery”, and he recently authored an article on this subject that is receiving a tremendous amount of attention.  The following is how that article begins…

I’ve been reading a lot about a “recovering” economy. It was even trumpeted on Page 1 of The New York Times and Financial Timeslast week.

I don’t think it’s true.

The percentage of Americans who say they are in the middle or upper-middle class has fallen 10 percentage points, from a 61% average between 2000 and 2008 to 51% today.

Other surveys have found that it is even worse than that.

For example, a Pew Research Center study from the end of last year discovered that the middle class in America has now actually become a minority in this country.

Here are some other numbers that Clifton included in his article…

1. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of the total U.S. adult population that has a full-time job has been hovering around 48% since 2010 — this is the lowest full-time employment level since 1983.
2. The number of publicly listed companies trading on U.S. exchanges has been cut almost in half in the past 20 years — from about 7,300 to 3,700. Because firms can’t grow organically — that is, build more business from new and existing customers — they give up and pay high prices to acquire their competitors, thus drastically shrinking the number of U.S. public companies. This seriously contributes to the massive loss of U.S. middle-class jobs.
3. New business startups are at historical lows. Americans have stopped starting businesses. And the businesses that do start are growing at historically slow rates.

Once upon a time, America was the land of opportunity.

We were the place where anything was possible and where entrepreneurship was greatly encouraged.

But today we strangle small businesses to death with rules, regulations, red tape and taxes.

If we want a stronger middle class, we need to create a much better environment for the creation of small businesses.  Small business ownership often lifts individuals into the middle class, and small businesses have traditionally been the primary engine for the growth of good jobs in this country.

If the middle class continues to shrink, poverty will continue to rise.  Previously I have written about how the number of homeless children in the United States has shot up by 60 percent since the last economic crisis, and Poverty USA claims that a staggering 1.6 million children slept either in a homeless shelter or in some other form of emergency housing during 2015.

If you will be sleeping in a warm bed in a comfortable home tonight, you should be thankful.  An increasing number of Americans are sleeping in tent cities, in their vehicles or on the streets.  These hurting people deserve our love, our compassion and our prayers.

Credit to Zero Hedge

You Won’t Believe Where the Oldest-Known Carving of the Ten Commandments Is Found

“And He declared unto you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, even the ten words; and He wrote them upon two tables of stone.” Deuteronomy 4:13 (The Israel Bible™)




Los Lunas Decalogue Stone with ten commandments written in Paleo-Hebrew, located in New Mexico. (Wikimedia Commons)


It may surprise many people to learn that the oldest known Ten Commandments written in Hebrew on stone may not be in the Holy Land, but in America. The controversial carving resides west of Los Lunas, New Mexico at the bottom of a place called Hidden Mountain. Named the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone, it is also known as “Mystery Stone”, “Phoenician Inscription Rock”, or “Mystery Rock”. It contains the text of the Ten Commandments written in ancient Paleo-Hebrew.

“Paleo-Hebrew predates our modern style of Hebrew writing,” Roni Segal, the academic adviser for eTeacher, an online language academy, explained to Breaking Israel News. “This form of Hebrew writing was used for approximately one thousand years and fell into disuse around 500 BC.”

The 80-ton boulder on which the writings were carved is so large that it may have been in its present-day location since the time of King Solomon, who ruled from 1014 BC to 974 BC. “The more square-like Hebrew script used today came into common use after King Solomon’s reign,” continued Segal. “Since the writing on this stone is in Paleo-Hebrew script, archaeologists surmise that this stone dates back to Biblical times.”

During King Solomon’s rule, it is known that the Israelites maintained reverence for the Ten commandments and wrote with Paleo-Hebrew characters. As the Hidden Mountain site was accessible by ship in ancient times, it is plausible that the Israelites landed there during their voyages.

King Solomon was an affluent and powerful king whose monarchy was marked by many years of peace. He is considered “the wisest of all men” who ordered sea voyages around the world to satisfy his curiosity about all things near and far. In addition, it is possible that the Israelites had been sent to the Hidden Mountain to find raw materials for King Solomon’s vast building projects, which included the building of the first Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

King Solomon also built ships at Ezion Geber, which is near Elath in Edom, on the shore of the Red Sea.

And Hiram sent his men–sailors who knew the sea–to serve in the fleet with Solomon’s men. 1 Kings 9: 26-27

Harvard scholar Robert Pfeiffer, an expert in Semitic languages, confirmed the Paleo-Hebrew script and translated the writings as the Ten Commandments which include, “I am the Lord, thy God, who brought you out of the land” and “Thou shalt have no other gods”.

The stone is not without detractors. Professor of archaeology at Central Connecticut State University, Kenneth Feder has declared that “the stone is almost certainly a fake” as it seems to make use of some modern Hebrew punctuation and contains numerous stylistic and grammatical errors.

The late professor and archaeologist Frank Hibben was the first to mention the stone in 1933. He stated that he was first shown the Decalogue by a guide who claims to have found it in the 1880s. However, Hibben had a reputation for fabricating archaeological data. Unfortunately, because of the stone’s enormous weight and years of unprofessional cleaning the inscriptions, its authenticity has never been proved by a laboratory.

However, Hebrew scholar Cyrus Gordon of Brandeis University near Boston, among others, has vouched for the stone’s authenticity.

“We know that Hebrew was important to America’s founding fathers and that other ancient Paleo-Hebrew inscriptions have been found in North America,” Segal told Breaking Israel News. “Hebrew not only connects us back to our Godly and Biblical roots but also connects people back to their North American roots!”

Credit to
Read more at http://www.“And He declared unto you His covenant, which He commanded you to perform, even the ten words; and He wrote them upon two tables of stone.” Deuteronomy 4:13 (The Israel Bible™)

image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/10_Commandment_Rock.jpg

Los Lunas Decalogue Stone with ten commandments written in Paleo-Hebrew, located in New Mexico. (Wikimedia Commons)

It may surprise many people to learn that the oldest known Ten Commandments written in Hebrew on stone may not be in the Holy Land, but in America. The controversial carving resides west of Los Lunas, New Mexico at the bottom of a place called Hidden Mountain. Named the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone, it is also known as “Mystery Stone”, “Phoenician Inscription Rock”, or “Mystery Rock”. It contains the text of the Ten Commandments written in ancient Paleo-Hebrew.

“Paleo-Hebrew predates our modern style of Hebrew writing,” Roni Segal, the academic adviser for eTeacher, an online language academy, explained to Breaking Israel News. “This form of Hebrew writing was used for approximately one thousand years and fell into disuse around 500 BC.”

The 80-ton boulder on which the writings were carved is so large that it may have been in its present-day location since the time of King Solomon, who ruled from 1014 BC to 974 BC. “The more square-like Hebrew script used today came into common use after King Solomon’s reign,” continued Segal. “Since the writing on this stone is in Paleo-Hebrew script, archaeologists surmise that this stone dates back to Biblical times.”

During King Solomon’s rule, it is known that the Israelites maintained reverence for the Ten commandments and wrote with Paleo-Hebrew characters. As the Hidden Mountain site was accessible by ship in ancient times, it is plausible that the Israelites landed there during their voyages.

image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/useful_banner_manager_banners/446-EN_BIB_Journey_600X150.jpg

image: http://banman.eteachergroup.com/a.aspx?ZoneID=0&BannerID=1657&AdvertiserID=64&CampaignID=1165&Task=Get&Mode=TEXT&SiteID=2&RandomNumber=431359

King Solomon was an affluent and powerful king whose monarchy was marked by many years of peace. He is considered “the wisest of all men” who ordered sea voyages around the world to satisfy his curiosity about all things near and far. In addition, it is possible that the Israelites had been sent to the Hidden Mountain to find raw materials for King Solomon’s vast building projects, which included the building of the first Holy Temple in Jerusalem. 

King Solomon also built ships at Ezion Geber, which is near Elath in Edom, on the shore of the Red Sea. 

And Hiram sent his men–sailors who knew the sea–to serve in the fleet with Solomon’s men. 1 Kings 9: 26-27

Harvard scholar Robert Pfeiffer, an expert in Semitic languages, confirmed the Paleo-Hebrew script and translated the writings as the Ten Commandments which include, “I am the Lord, thy God, who brought you out of the land” and “Thou shalt have no other gods”.

The stone is not without detractors.  Professor of archaeology at Central Connecticut State University, Kenneth Feder has declared that “the stone is almost certainly a fake” as it seems to make use of some modern Hebrew punctuation and contains numerous stylistic and grammatical errors.
The late professor and archaeologist Frank Hibben was the first to mention the stone in 1933. He stated that he was first shown the Decalogue by a guide who claims to have found it in the 1880s. However, Hibben had a reputation for fabricating archaeological data. Unfortunately, because of the stone’s enormous weight and years of unprofessional cleaning the inscriptions, its authenticity has never been proved by a laboratory. 

However, Hebrew scholar Cyrus Gordon of Brandeis University near Boston, among others, has vouched for the stone’s authenticity. 

“We know that Hebrew was important to America’s founding fathers and that other ancient Paleo-Hebrew inscriptions have been found in North America,” Segal told Breaking Israel News. “Hebrew not only connects us back to our Godly and Biblical roots but also connects people back to their North American roots!”

Credit to breakingisraelnews.com
Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/76113/oldest-paleo-hebrew-ten-commandments-found/#9l1Eab3dFcAPVtdx.99/76113/oldest-paleo-hebrew-ten-commandments-found/#9l1Eab3dFcAPVtdx.99

US admit using white phosphorus munitions in Iraq (Warning: Disturbing images)

Kuwait Forcing All Citizens To Give In Their DNA

A relatively new controversial law in Kuwait is forcing all citizens and foreign residents to turn in their DNA information and now a lawyer in the Middle East country is challenging its constitutionality.

The attorney, named Adel Abdulhadi, filed a brief with the Kuwaiti government in July with the hopes of overturning the legislation, according to Ars Technica.

The mandate was passed quickly after a July, 2015, terrorist attack in the country’s capital, Kuwait City, ended in 26 deaths. Kuwaiti authorities approved the measure, set to take effect in November, in order to identify potential terrorists and perhaps even the victims of terrorist attacks.

Any refusal to submit DNA samples could result in one year of imprisonment and a $33,000 fine. It is more severe for people to submit fake samples with a punishment of seven years in jail, according to Yahoo News.


Credit to dailycaller.com
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/09/23/brave-new-world-lawyer-challenging-middle-east-nation-forcing-all-citizens-to-give-in-their-dna/#ixzz4L92B0ckc

“We are reaching a really terrifying conclusion for the whole world: That the White House is defending Islamic State.

U.S.-led coalition air strikes killed dozens of Syrian soldiers on Saturday, endangering a U.S.-Russian ceasefire and prompting an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting as tensions between Moscow and Washington escalated.

Just a few days ago it was reported that Putin felt that if anything happened to damage the tentative ceasefire agreement that it would be Obama’s fault. Seems he was right.

Reuters reported:

The United States military said the coalition stopped the attacks against what it had believed to be Islamic State positions in northeast Syria after Russia informed it that Syrian military personnel and vehicles may have been hit.

The United States relayed its “regret” through the Russian government for what it described as the unintentional loss of life of Syrian forces in the strike, a senior Obama administration official said in an emailed statement.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said in an emailed statement that Russian officials did not voice concerns earlier on Saturday when informed that coalition aircraft would be operating in the strike area. The 15-member Security Council met on Saturday night after Russia demanded an emergency session to discuss the incident and accused the United States of jeopardizing the Syria deal.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, chastised Russia for the move. “Russia really needs to stop the cheap point scoring and the grandstanding and the stunts and focus on what matters, which is implementation of something we negotiated in good faith with them,” Power told reporters. She said the United States was investigating the air strikes and “if we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention and we of course regret the loss of life.”

When asked if the incident spelled the end of the Syria deal between Moscow and Washington, Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said: “This is a very big question mark.”

“I would be very interested to see how Washington is going to react. If what Ambassador Power has done today is any indication of their possible reaction then we are in serious trouble,” Churkin told reporters. Moscow cited the strikes, which allowed Islamic State fighters to briefly overrun a Syrian army position near Deir al-Zor airport, as evidence that the United States was helping.

Credit to jewsnews.co.il

http://www.jewsnews.co.il/2016/09/22/russia-hits-obamahard-we-are-reaching-a-really-terrifying-conclusion-for-the-whole-world-that-the-white-house-is-defending-islamic-state.html