2012 Olympic Closing Ceremony. Illuminati Symbolism. Showing end of the Age NWO.

Biblical Anticipations - Chuck Missler

Social Security Administration To Purchase 174 Thousand Rounds Of Hollow Point Bullets

First it was the Department of Homeland Security, then it was the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and now the Social Security Administration is set to purchase 174,000 rounds of hollow point bullets that will be delivered to 41 locations across the country.

A solicitation posted by the SSA on the FedBizOpps website asks for contractors to supply 174,000 rounds of “.357 Sig 125 grain bonded jacketed hollow point pistol ammunition.”

An online ammunition retailer describes the bullets as suitable “for peak performance rivaling and sometimes surpassing handloads in many guns,” noting that the ammo is “a great personal defense bullet.”

The synopsis to the solicitation adds that the ammunition is to be shipped to 41 locations within 60 days of purchase. A separate spreadsheet lists those locations, which include the Social Security headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland as well as major cities across the country including Los Angeles, Detroit, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Denver, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Seattle.

Hollow point bullets are designed to expand as they enter the body, causing maximum damage by tearing apart internal organs.

It’s not outlandish to suggest that the Social Security Administration is purchasing the bullets as part of preparations for civil unrest. Social security welfare is estimated to keep around 40 per cent of senior citizens out of poverty. Should the tap run dry in the aftermath of an economic collapse which the Federal Reserve has already told top banks to prepare for, domestic disorder could ensue if people are refused their benefits.

Indeed, earlier this year the Department of Homeland Security ran a drill called Operation Shield which included turning the entrance of a Florida Social Security office into a checkpoint manned by Federal Protective Service officers armed with semiautomatic rifles.

“With their blue and white SUVs circled around the Main Street office, at least one official was posted on the door with a semiautomatic rifle, randomly checking identifications. And other officers, some with K-9s, sifted through the building,” reported the Daily Commercial.

A rash of solicitations by federal agencies for hollow point bullets in recent months has stoked fears that the government is preparing for civil unrest caused by a financial collapse on a scale similar or even larger to scenes already witnessed in Europe over the last two years.

As we reported yesterday, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has put out a contract for 46,000 rounds of hollow point bullets along with 500 paper targets.

Despite initially asking the bullets to be delivered to the National Weather Service, NOAA claimed this was a “clerical error” and insisted the ammunition was being sent to the Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement. Why powerful hollow point bullets that are designed to tear apart internal organs are needed for practice shooting at paper targets has not been explained.

Back in March, Homeland Security purchased 450 million rounds of .40-caliber hollow point bullets that are designed to expand upon entry and cause maximum organ damage, prompting questions as to why the DHS needed such a large amount of powerful bullets merely for training purposes.

This was followed by another DHS solicitation asking for a further 750 million rounds of assorted bullets, including 357 mag rounds that are able to penetrate walls.

The DHS recently put out an order for riot gear in preparation for the upcoming DNC, RNC and presidential inauguration. The U.S. Army is also busy buying similar equipment.

The DHS also recently purchased a number of bullet-proof checkpoint booths that include ‘stop and go’ lights.

Infowars

Only Bankruptcy Can Help Now

Officially, at least, everything is going according to plan. In September, officials with the troika -- made up of the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) -- are planning to travel to Athens to check on the progress that Greece has made with its cost-cutting program. Then, according to the plan, they could disburse billions more in aid out of the second bailout package for Greece, which the euro-zone countries and the IMF agreed on in February.

But, in reality, it is rather unlikely that all of the €130 billion ($160 billion) in the bailout package will ever be paid out. And what is even more unlikely is that the money would keep Greece from going bankrupt.

The assumptions on which the current program was based in February are no longer valid. At that time, it was thought that the Greek economy would only contract by 4.5 percent this year, but now it appears that this figure will be closer to 7 percent. This would mean even fewer tax receipts and even more social expenditures. What's more, given these circumstances, it's almost irrelevant that the Greek government is expected to ask for a two-year extension, to 2016, of the agreed austerity plan.

One thing is clear: In addition to more time, Greece also needs more money. And those who have been financing it thus far -- primarily the major euro-zone countries and the IMF -- are either unwilling or unable to give the country any more. In political terms, that is completely understandable: One can only imagine the earful that German Chancellor Angela Merkel would get if she were to present a third aid package for Greece before the Bundestag, Germany's parliament. In fact, the members of her own conservative coalition would probably chase her out of the building.

Truth be told, Merkel only has herself to blame for the fact that she is stuck in this pickle. She dug in her heels too much in insisting that the problems of Southern European countries could only be solved by drastic belt-tightening, and that what the Greeks were really lacking was the will to do what was necessary. Now she can hardly abandon this way of interpreting the crisis.

Delaying the Inevitable and Necessary

If it was ever the goal of Merkel and her allies to rescue Greece from bankruptcy, then they have failed. The only thing the drastic austerity measures have done is to exacerbate the economic crisis and push Greece's debts even higher. Nevertheless, the creditors have insisted on moving forward with their plan -- even though it already became clear long ago where it was heading.

The end of this approach now appears to have been reached. Neither euro-zone countries nor the IMF can provide Greece with more aid without sacrificing their own credibility. Given these circumstances, there is only one option left: Greece must go broke.




Spiegel

Webster Tarpley: Global Financial Collapse is Coming!

Iran won’t hit back at US targets if Israel attacks

Tehran is not interested in raising the stakes in its standoff with Israel and would not strike US targets if Israel were to attack its nuclear program, Channel 10 news reported Wednesday, quoting unnamed senior Israeli defense officials.

Contrary to previous assessments that Iran would turn an Israeli attack into an all-out regional war — involving the US and its Middle Eastern allies — current wisdom holds that it would avoid drawing the US into battle and settle for retaliating solely against Israel, the report quoted the officials as saying.

Channel 10′s foreign affairs correspondent Nadav Eyal said an official told him that as opposed to prior estimates, which held that Iran would retaliate for an Israeli attack by closing off the Strait of Hormuz and launching missile attacks on regional US installations, recent intelligence reports indicate that Iran’s leaders fear American involvement.

Current assessments reportedly hold that Iran would still use all the means at its disposal, including ordering attacks by its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah, to take its revenge on the Jewish state.

In his latest pronouncement, Iranian Supreme leader Ali Khamenei said Israel will disappear from “the scene of geography.” Addressing war veterans in Tehran on Wednesday, he said Iran considers it its “religious duty to save this Islamic country (Palestine) from the clutches of the Zionist occupiers.”

The reported assessment came a day after top US officials spoke out publicly and warily about possible Israeli plans to strike Iranian nuclear sites.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said on Tuesday that Israel’s air force did not have the capability to deliver a knockout blow to Iran’s nuclear program. “I think that it’s a fair characterization to say that they could delay but not destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities,” Dempsey said.

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he did not believe Israel had yet made a decision on whether or not to embark on a military campaign.

“I don’t believe they made a decision as to whether or not they will go in and attack Iran at this time,” Panetta said. “Obviously, they’re a sovereign country. They’ll ultimately make decisions based on what they think is in their national security interest. But I don’t believe they made that decision at this time.”

Panetta added that he thought there was still time for sanctions against Tehran, designed to push the Iranians into abandoning their nuclear program, to take hold.

Former US ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer said Wednesday that Israel should not misinterpret Panetta’s talk of Israel being a sovereign country that would make its own decisions as constituting any kind of US “green light” for Israeli action. That was not what Panetta was saying at all, said Kurtzer.

Times of Israel

$100 Million to States to Subsidize Payrolls

(CNSNews.com) – The Labor Department announced on Monday that it will be awarding almost $100 million in grant funding to states to prevent layoffs by allowing businesses to pay employees as part-time workers and the federal government will pick up the tab for the cost of a full-time paycheck.

The “work-sharing” program was passed as part of a Republican-led bill in the House, H.R. 3630, and Senate Amendment 1465 to extend the payroll tax deduction and unemployment benefits. In February 2012, President Barack Obama signed the bill into law, which included the $100 million in funding.

"Establishing or expanding work-sharing programs nationwide will help business owners better weather hard economic times by temporarily reducing their labor costs while still keeping their existing skilled employees," Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis said in the press release announcing the grants. "This program is a win-win for businesses and employees alike."

The work-sharing programs “allows employees to keep their jobs and helps employers to avoid laying off their trained workforces during economic downturns by reducing the hours of work for an entire group of affected workers,” according to the Labor Department.

The grants will be given to states that apply and meet certain requirements, including having short-term compensation programs in place that meet federal guidelines. Workers will have “wages compensated with a portion of their weekly unemployment compensation payments,” according to the Labor Department.

The Labor Department also released a chart detailing the funding available for all 50 states, U.S territories and the District of Columbia.

The largest pot is available to California, with $11,593,587 in grant funding listed. New York and Florida can get around $6 million, with Illinois and Pennsylvania eligible for more than $4 million each.

CNS

Barak: We must make Iran decision now

Defense Minister Ehud Barak continued to address speculation of a possible military attack against Iran on Thursday during the Knesset plenum, and explained why a decision on Iran must be made now.

Barak said that dealing with a nuclear Iran would be incomparably more dangerous and more expensive.

"Dealing with Iran is not risk-free but in fact there are outcomes that we can't predict." However, Barak asserted that the government would be able to make the decision on the matter. "Any decision made, will be decided upon by the government and not civilian groups or editorials," he said.

Speaking at the swearing in of Avi Dichter as Israel's new Home Front Defense Minister, Barak said that "In all the wars and peacemaking (efforts) in Israel's history, there is no issue that has been dealt with as deeply as the issue of Iran has."

Barak further said that "there are differences of opinion, but the subject of Iran is being dealt with. Neither the First Lebanon War, nor the Second Lebanon War or even the Oslo Accords were dealt with in this manner."

Regarding the possible strike against Iran, Kadima chairmanShaul Mofaz further said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is blatantly interfering in the US election and is "risking our children's lives" for the sake of political survival.

Mofaz further criticized Netanyahu, claiming that the Israeli government headed by the PM has not invested enough in protecting the home front. "The new home front defense minister might have a fancy title but he has no true authority or the means to deal with such threats," he said.

"You can cast the legal responsibility on Dichter but the moral responsibility is still on you," Mofaz added with regards to Netanyahu.

"Netanyahu is trying to create a panic and scare us, and the truth is that we are scared – scared of his lack of judgment, scared that he is being led and not leading, but most of all, we're scared that he is executing a policy that is both dangerous and irresponsible," Mofaz said.

Ynet

No warrant needed to track phone

CINCINNATI, Aug. 15 (UPI) -- A U.S. appellate court has ruled police can track a suspect's location through his cellphone without first obtaining a warrant.

Criminals cannot "complain" when police use a feature on the suspect's own device to catch them, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.

It ruled law enforcement officials were within their legal right to track Melvin Skinner, an alleged drug trafficker, through the global positioning system feature on his cellphone before his arrest in 2006, CNET reported Wednesday.

Skinner appealed his subsequent conviction, arguing it violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure.

"The drug runners in this case used pay-as-you-go (and thus presumably more difficult to trace) cellphones to communicate during the cross-country shipment of drugs," Judge John M. Rogers wrote in his opinion.

"Unfortunately for the drug runners, the phones were trackable in a way they may not have suspected. The Constitution, however, does not protect their erroneous expectations regarding the undetectability of their modern tools."

"When criminals use modern technological devices to carry out criminal acts and to reduce the possibility of detection, they can hardly complain when the police take advantage of the inherent characteristics of those very devices to catch them," Rogers wrote.

"This is not a case in which the government secretly placed a tracking device in someone's car," he wrote, referring to a ruling earlier this year by the U.S. Supreme Court that said law enforcement agencies must obtain a warrant in order to place a GPS tracking device on a vehicle.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2012/08/15/Court-No-warrant-needed-to-track-phone/UPI-31321345070366/#ixzz23idfRBEf

Iran's Khamenei: Israel will eventually disappear

Speaking ahead of "al-Quds Day," which will be marked in Iran on Friday, Khamenei said "…the light of hope will shine on the Palestinian issue, and this Islamic land will certainly be returned to the Palestinian nation, and the superfluous and fake Zionist (regime) will disappear from the landscape."

The supreme leader accused the "Zionists and their supporters" of trying to cause the world to forget the Palestinian issue.

"With god's help, this year as well the Iranian nation will punch the faces of the enemies of Islam on al-Quds Day," Khamenei was quoted as saying during a meeting with veterans of the Iran-Iraq War.

On al-Quds Day, millions of Shiites around the world rally in support of the Palestinians. "The Palestinian issue is not a tactical issue for us, but an (important) Islamic principle," the supreme leader added. "We want to save this Islamic state from the oppressive Zionist fingernails."

Earlier on Wednesday, an Iranian defense official said Israel must be destroyed.

Gholam Reza Jalali, who heads an Iranian military unit in charge of fighting sabotage, said that al-Quds Day "is an expression of the fact that there is no other way but to stand firm and resist until Israel is destroyed."


Ynet

Telling it like it is about Medicare.

Neither US nor Israel can destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities, only cause delay

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said Tuesday night that he doesn’t believe Israel has made a decision to attack Iran’s nuclear program. “As a sovereign country, they will ultimately make decisions based on what they think is in their national security interest,” he said, but he believed there was “still room to continue to negotiate” and “additional sanctions were beginning to have an additional impact.” The Secretary added that the Israeli prime minister agrees that military action should be the last resort.

At their joint press briefing in Washington, Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: “I am not privy to [Israel’s] planning. So what I’m telling you is based on what I know of their capabilities. And I may not know about all of their capabilities. But I think it’s fair… to say they could delay but not destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities.”

DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources say that neither official said anything new.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have reiterated firmly that the government had not reached a decision on whether to attack Iran. They have fully agreed it must be the last, not the first, option.
The fly in the ointment of US-Israeli interchanges on the subject is to be found in Gen. Dempsey’s rather than Panetta’s phrasing. For instance:
1. Dempsey: “I may not know all of their [Israel’s] capabilities.”

DEBKAfile: The US army chief may know all there is to know about those capabilities but may not be fully apprised of how they are to be used, or when. That doesn’t mean he has no notion of Israel’s plans of operations, but the tight compartmentalization of top-level and IDF operational decision-making on the Iranian topic necessarily results in him not being privy, as he said himself, to every last detail of Israeli planning for action against a nuclear Iran.

This does not rule out Israel, at the critical moment, forewarning Panetta and Dempsey – and through them President Barack Obama – about the event to come.

2. Dempsey: “But I think it’s fair… to say they [Israel] could delay but not destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities.”
DEBKAfile: This premise is accurate: Neither Netanyahu and Barak or the IDF generals and security chiefs, past and present, who urge Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear capabilities (They are numerous although antagonists are featured on front pages.) presume that Iran’s nuclear program can be leveled to the ground at one stroke. Israel hopes to hold it up for a couple of years.
But this raises another question: Isn’t it too late for even the United States with its superior capabilities to aspire to total Iran’s nuclear capabilities?
Neither Panetta nor Dempsey discussed this US capacity but, according to our sources, while the Americans can certainly achieve more and longer-lasting destruction than Israel, they too can no longer destroy the program in its entirety. But they could delay it for four to five years, double the grace period Israel could achieve.

It must be stressed that the longer the world waits for diplomacy or sanctions to take effect and holds back from direction action, the faster the options for even slowing down Iran’s nuclearization shrink - not just for Israel but for the United States too.
The last moment for the United States and Israel, separately or together, to have destroyed Iran’s program went by without action four years ago in 2007. Today, the best they can achieve is to temporarily hold Iran back from building a bomb.

DEBKAfile

Germany stands firm on Greek bail-out demands

A meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Antonis Samaras, Greece's prime minister next Friday will put "everything onto the table," said Steffan Siebert.

However, he added that the German government stood by the Greek memorandum of understanding as written. "The German position, which is a European position, is based on the memorandum of understanding, which is the foundation," he said.

On Tuesday, the Financial Times reported that Mr Samaras would formally ask for a two-year extension to implement austerity measures.

Evangelos Venizelos, Greece's former finance minister and leader of the socialist PASOK party had previously called for a three year extension that would provide a "realistic framework" for the country's reform efforts. "We are heading into deep water," he said in July.

Mr Siebert said that the German Chancellor would "certainly listen to what Mr Samaras has to say about the situation in Greece and the implementation of the program."

The Telegraph

The Next One will be the Big One

I don’t see how anyone could say the financial system is stable. The facts say it is anything but well-balanced and steady. The Western world is in crisis with Europe leading the way over the financial cliff. Pick a country in the EU. France, Greece, Spain or Italy are all capable of causing the next financial panic. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard or read the word “collapse” in reporting on this spiraling financial crisis. On Monday, German media giant Der Spiegel ran a headline that read “Investors Prepare for Euro Collapse.” The story said, “Banks, companies and investors are preparing themselves for a collapse of the euro. Cross-border bank lending is falling, asset managers are shunning Europe and money is flowing into German real estate and bonds. The euro remains stable against the dollar because America has debt problems too. But unlike the euro, the dollar’s structure isn’t in doubt.” 

If the Euro goes down, the dollar will follow probably after a short spike. This is just one of many recent examples of the fragility of the financial system.

There is too much debt and not enough growth or taxes to service it. It’s the same problem almost everywhere on the planet. Governments are just printing money to try and make the problem go away. Egon von Greyerz, founder of Matterhorn Asset Management ($5 billion in assets), said this week, “This is why money printing is guaranteed in Europe, the US, UK and Japan. History teaches us that a nation which runs large deficits and increasing debts could never create wealth in the long-run. Wealth has never been created by printing money, and this time, like it has before, it will lead to a financial crash. This time the financial crash will be of a worldwide magnitude.”

Nigel Farage, outspoken Member European Parliament, also fears another approaching calamity. Just last week, he said, “It isn’t the euro that scares me anymore. What scares me is the sheer level of indebtedness, and the fact that so many of our banks in the Western world are just in such serious trouble that we could face a situation where even if governments wanted to bail them out, the problem may become bigger than them. So I do not discount, at some point, a really dramatic banking collapse.”

The next collapse will make the 2008 meltdown look like a day at the beach. According to Professor William Black, it looks like a mathematical certainty. Black is a former top bank regulator who helped unwind the Savings and Loan scandal. He is also a professor of both law and economics and studies why we have“reoccurring and intensifying financial crises.” In an interview this week, he told me, “. . . each crisis is becoming bigger by an order of magnitude. The savings and loan debacle was $150 billion roughly. The Enron era frauds and collapse of the high tech boom was six to seven trillion dollars. Just the household sector (in the 2007-2008 meltdown) lost $11 trillion dollars.” 

If you add in $700 billion of TARP, more than $800 billion in stimulus, zero percent interest rates through 2014, FDIC deposit insurance for investment banks, the implicit guarantee of the “too big to fail” banks by taxpayers and the $16.1 trillion pumped out by the Fed to bailout the world–you have one colossal crisis. The next calamity will get bigger than the last by an “order of magnitude” because bankers, according to Professor Black, “can commit these frauds with impunity.” (Black is referring to liar loans, security fraud of bundling those loans, ratings fraud, and the forgery and perjury of foreclosure fraud and many others.)

It is mostly the fault of greedy bankers who bought off corrupt politicians that allowed all the debt and bailouts to explode. You would think the politicians would make the stability of the financial system a top priority. After all, it is the cornerstone of retaining power. Look at Libya’s Gadhafi. You may not like him, but there was a reason he stayed in power for 40 years. He couldn’t have done it without a stable financial system. (He was also was sitting on 144 tons of gold. That’s a lot of security, especially for a country the size of Libya.) So, whether you are a dictator or a democracy, you want a rock solid system with zero chance of collapse.

Professor Black says, “We are rolling the dice every day to have the disaster.” In short, the next one will be the big one, and it can happen at any time without warning.

USA Watchdog