One cannot follow Jesus, love Jesus without the church, pope says

If you know enough history you will remember that this is the way the inquisition begins in 1232, for those who do not remember what it is, here is the concept:

The Inquisition was an ecclesiastical court and process of the Roman Catholic Church setup for the purpose towards the discovery and punishment of heresy which wielded immense power and brutality in medieval and early modern times. 

The Inquisitions function was principally assembled to repress all heretics of rights, depriving them of their estate and assets which became subject to the ownership of the Catholic treasury, with each relentlessly sought to destroy anyone who spoke, or even thought differently to the Catholic Church. 

This system for close to over six centuries became the legal framework throughout most of Europe that orchestrated one of the most confound religious orders in the course of mankind. (about 5 millon died by direct or indirect Consequences of the inquisition) WAY TO DO IT FRANCIS.....




VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Following Jesus means belonging to the church, the community that gives Christians their identity, Pope Francis said.

"It is not possible to find Jesus outside the church," he said in his Mass homily April 23. "The great Paul VI said it is 'an absurd dichotomy' to want to live with Jesus without the church, to follow Jesus outside the church, to love Jesus without the church."

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, told the pope the cardinals had wanted to join him for the Mass "to thank our Father in heaven for the gifts he has given you thus far and to request abundant graces upon your Petrine ministry."

The cardinal asked God to give them and the pope "the strength with which the Holy Spirit infused St. George and the martyrs of every age" to face difficulties, serve the poor and spread the Gospel.

In his homily, Pope Francis spoke about the persecution of the first Christian communities and how opposition did not stop them from sharing their faith in Christ, but went hand in hand with even greater missionary activity.

"Precisely at the moment persecution erupted, the missionary activity of the church erupted as well," the pope said.

When the first Christians began sharing the Gospel with "the Greeks," and not just other Jews, it was something completely new and made some of the Apostles "a bit nervous," the pope said. They sent Barnabas to Antioch to check on the situation, a kind of "apostolic visitation," he said. "With a bit of a sense of humor, we can say this was the theological beginning of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith."

Barnabas saw that the church was growing, he said. The church was becoming "the mother of more and more children," a mother that not only generates sons and daughters, but gives them faith and an identity.

Christian identity is not a bureaucratic status, it is "belonging to the church ... the mother church, because it is not possible to find Jesus outside the church," Pope Francis said. "It is the mother church who gives us Jesus, gives us identity."

Pope Francis said that when Barnabas witnessed the crowds of new believers he rejoiced with "the joy of an evangelizer."

The growth of the church, the pope said, "begins with persecution -- a great sadness -- and ends with joy. This is how the church moves forward -- as I saint, I don't recall which right now, said -- between the persecution of the world and the consolation of the Lord. The life of the church is this way."

"If we want to take the path of the mundane, negotiating with the world," the pope said, "we will never have the consolation of the Lord. If we seek only consolation, it will be superficial."

The life of the church is a path that always alternates between "persecution and consolation, between the Cross and the Resurrection," he said.


CNS

How The Boston Bombing Is Already Being Exploited To Introduce Tyranny

I have no personal experience in the business of false flag terrorism, but I imagine that engineering a successfully staged terror attack to be blamed on innocent or semi-innocent parties with the goal of psychologically manipulating a population requires that one also be an accomplished storyteller. It demands an avid imagination and an organized sense of foresight. And, most of all, it requires a consistency of narrative. Without consistency, the audience’s ability to suspend its disbelief is damaged, and they become disconnected from the fantasy being portrayed.

If I were the “writer” behind the “story” of the Boston Marathon Bombing, I would consider my efforts an abject failure.
The narrative of the event has changed multiple times in only a few days, following a hailstorm of conflicting observations from the government and the establishment-run media. The “villain” of the original plotline was clearly meant to be “rightwing extremism” as numerous mainstream talking heads, led by federal agency inferences, began repeating the “homegrown right wing terrorist” meme everywhere. This meme was partly abandoned after the alternative media and the Liberty Movement began its own investigation, revealing a large federal presence on the scene, including military Civil Support Teams often tied to the DHS and Northcom, as well as the witnesses who observed what on-scene officials called “training exercises” during the marathon. I have no doubt that these citizen investigations forced the establishment to change the direction of their crime tale, and use Plan B patsies instead. This, however, complicated the momentum of the fiction, and created even more questions.

The Chechen brothers now implicated in the attack have been revealed as long time FBI contacts. This is a bit awkward for the FBI considering they asked the American public to help them “identify the suspects in on-scene photos” while they failed to mention that they knew EXACTLY who the two young men were already (this is what we might call a contrived story arch). Today, the older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, is conveniently dead. The younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, had his throat conveniently shot out. The feds are now supplying the media with “written confessions” from Dzhokhar to which there is no proof of legitimacy. For all we know the boy hasn’t written a word.

The new “villains” get no voice in this drama, and thus become two dimensional characters. They exist so that we can hate them. Understanding them, or hearing their side of events from their own lips, is certainly out of the question. Poorly fleshed out antagonists are a sure sign of a poorly constructed story.

Finally, we get to the “heroes”. Though the criminal elements of our federal government and adjoining alphabet agencies did not yet get the right wing patriot patsy they obviously wanted, they have still so far gleaned considerable social capital from the bombings. The point of a false flag is to frighten the population of any given nation into relinquishing freedom in the name of safety, which in the process gives the central government even more control. In the wake of the Boston attack, the establishment is having a field day…

Martial Law Conditioning

For a few days, Boston became an Orwellian nightmare. The city lockdown and subsequent militarization was swift, though any intelligent and guilty suspect could have easily left the area before hand. This kind of response to catch only two supposed perpetrators is outlandish, unless you understand that it was not about catching the bombers. Rather, it was an exercise designed to test the malleability of the American people during a crisis scenario. In Watertown, residents were not only forced into lockdown; they were also subjected to house-to-house searches without warrant, pat downs, and numerous other violations of their 4th Amendment rights. Take note that almost everything you see in the video below is an illegal and unconstitutional action on the part of Boston authorities:

As this was occurring, officials were consistently pushing media cameras away from the area in the name of “safety”, even though media cameramen are sent into domestic shootouts and foreign warzones on a regular basis. The only real purpose that I can see to removing them from the scene was to reduce the amount of video footage depicting these illegal searches and seizures:



For those who can’t grasp what has happened here, let me explain; the dynamics of liberty have just been erased. This kind of behavior on the part of government will not be limited to disasters like Boston, or New Orleans during Katrina; a precedence is being set to use martial law-style tactics anywhere for any reason at anytime. The “national security argument” is being used as a free license to institute any measure regardless of law to achieve a particular combat objective. The environment we saw in the dark days of Boston is an environment we’ll soon see all over the country, and here is why…

Escalation

Boston represents a clear escalation of the use of NDAA and martial law measures in the aftermath of a security event. After the arrest of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2012, his Miranda Rights under the Constitution were denied due to “extraneous circumstances of national security”. Numerous lawmakers called for the suspect to be treated as an “enemy combatant” so that he could be interrogated under the laws of war without due process:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/22/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-enemy-combatant_n_3132815.html

The Obama White House has cleverly called for a civilian trial of Tsarnaev in order to reduce criticisms of its support for numerous unconstitutional measures, including the NDAA and the use of assassination against American citizens. The White House has always claimed that it would not use the combatant provisions against American citizens, but has never denied that those provisions could be applied to us. The idea is that while the president does have these powers at his disposal, we’re supposed to have “faith” that he will not abuse them. During the debate over the passage of the NDAA, Obama opposed certain language within the legislation that REQUIRED him to treat accused domestic terrorists as enemy combatants, not because he thought it was wrong, or unconstitutional, but because he wanted the OPTION to decide whether he would or would not black bag a citizen and throw him into an unspecified hole. He has simply exercised his “option” for a citizen trial, at least this time around…

In the meantime, a simultaneous and so far poorly verified “train attack” has been averted in Canada, opening the door for more discussion on something the establishment has been trying to squeeze out of the populace for years: consent for the federalized lockdown of travel and public events. Whether through TSA, or the use of state authorities under the watch of the DHS, the government has been desperately clamoring to expand the control grid out of airports and federal buildings into the bus stations, subways, trains, highways and sidewalks of America:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/23/us-arrests-usa-railroads-idUSBRE93M1IZ20130423

I believe that we will soon see much greater presence of TSA VIPR teams at large public arenas and in transportation venues outside of airports, and that the Boston Bombing will be used as a primer for this expansion. Recent comments by NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg only reinforce my belief. Bloomberg, in reference to the marathon attack, stated that:

“…we live in a complex word where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.”

“Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms. New Yorkers probably know that as much if not more than anybody else after the terrible tragedy of 9/11…”

“We have to understand that in the world going forward, we’re going to have more cameras and that kind of stuff. That’s good in some sense, but it’s different from what we are used to…”

Ironically, the only enemy out there that appears ready to “take our freedoms away” are men like Bloomberg; snakes in the grass that pay lip service to the Constitution while constantly trying to undermine it.

Free Speech Is Next

The bombings in Boston took place, apparently by coincidence, just before Oath Keepers, a national organization of current serving military, police officers, and veterans promoting adherence to their constitutional oath was to hold a large rally at Lexington Green. The Lexington Green board, one member of which had been openly hostile to Oath Keepers in the past, decided to use the crisis as an excuse to deny the rally permit already attained by the liberty minded group.

The Lexington Selectmen claimed that under the suggestions of “state officials” the rally had to be cancelled due to the “lack of police” available to secure the area and ensure public safety. However, when Oath Keepers held a brief oath ceremony at the Green in protest of the decision, a police force was sent to watch them:

http://lexington.patch.com/articles/amid-manhunt-mayhem-oath-keepers-assemble-by-lexington-s-battle-green

This means that public safety was not the issue. Rather, safety and security were being used yet again to deny a constitutional right, and this time it was the most vital and valuable right of all – free speech.

During the height of the civil rights marches of the 50’s and 60’s, the exact same tactics were used to silence dissent. Black protesters were told that they could not obtain proper permits for peaceful marches because their “own safety” and the safety of the public could not be ensured. This matter of using broad hypothetical dangers as a catalyst for censorship was finally argued before the Supreme Court in Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham. The court sided with the protestors, pointing out that the use of undefined safety concerns and “prior restraint” to silence speech was unconstitutional. Unfortunately, the decision has not prevented the U.S. government from slowly undermining public protest rights ever since.

The fascinating thing about incremental tyranny is the way in which naïve members of our society try to rationalize it. They debate using logical fallacies like:

“How have your rights been violated in particular? If your rights haven’t been violated, what right do you have to complain?”
And how about this gem…

“Yeah, there are problems in this country, but at least we have some freedom. In many countries, you wouldn’t be allowed to complain the way you are…”
This is statist psychology at work. Freedom, in their minds, is a privilege doled out by governments, rather than an inborn attribute outside of the realm of law. They do not understand that the violation of the rights of one American is a violation of the rights of ALL Americans. They do not understand that the destruction of some constitutional protections will one day lead to the destruction of ALL constitutional protections.

The establishment and the useful idiots they manipulate want to make the “threat” the center of attention, but ultimately, the threat is irrelevant. There will always be the danger of terrorism and death. Always! And, if our government is following the Operation Gladio false flag model (look it up, folks, it was openly admitted government funded terrorism), as I believe they are, then we can count on Boston-style bombings all over the U.S. very soon.

True crisis lay in what we refuse to see, and the greatest crisis today is not the bombing of a marathon, but the destruction of our freedoms in the name of “security”. The bottom line? Our civil liberties are not up for compromise. Period. Shootings, bombs, nukes, nothing! There is no rationalization that will ever make tyranny a moral enterprise. I, like many other Americans, do not care what boogeyman fantasy is paraded in front of me. We are not frightened, and we are not ignorant. No attack, no matter how heinous, will ever convince us to hand over our freedom.


Zero Hedge

McGrath and Adrian Salbuchi

The End of April: A Time of Human Sacrifice

Why do we often witness tragedy and senseless deaths during the second half of April? The list of violent events that occurred during this time period is simply staggering. Here are some of them:
April 19, 1993 – Waco Massacre: An FBI assault lead to the burning down of the compound of a sect named Branch Davidians, killing 76 men, women and children.
April 19, 1995 - Oklahoma City bombing – 168 people killed.
April 20, 1999 – Columbine High School Massacre - 13 people murdered, 21 injured.
April 16, 2007 – Virginia Tech Massacre – 32 killed; 17 injured.
April 16, 2013 – Boston Marathon Explosions – 3 killed; 107 injured.
April 18, 2013 – Fertilizer plant explosion, Texas – 5-15 killed (Notice that this event occurred almost exactly 20 years after the Waco Massacre, which is in the same area. Also, on April 16, 1947, a ship loaded with ammonium nitrate docked at the Port of Texas City and erupted in flames, causing a massive explosion that killed approximately 576 people).

There were many other violent occurrences that happened during that time period. In fact, CNN published an article in 2011 titled What is it about mid-April and violence in America?, discussing the events that occur in Mid-April. Sadly, the article only bashed “conspiracy theorists” and basically said “If you look for answers further than mass media, you are crazy and potentially dangerous”. However, two years later, the violent trend continues.

Is it all a coincidence? For those in the know, there are no such thing as coincidences. In 2011, I wrote an article about the death of Bin Laden, announced between April 30th and May 1st (see Why the Death of the Man Who Was Not Behind 9/11 Was Announced on May 1st). In that article, I briefly described the ritualistic significance of May 1st (May Day) and its relation to a god that is still important for to the occult elite: Baal.

The Cult of Baal Never Disappeared



Throughout many centuries and across many civilizations, the second half of April has always been a time of blood sacrifice. The worship of Baal took many names (Enlil, Molech, etc.) and spread across several civilizations. Being a sun god and a god of fertility, rituals celebrating Baal took place after the vernal equinox (a time of rebirth) and often involved human sacrifice.


“The cult of Baal celebrated annually his death and resurrection as a part of the Canaanite fertility rituals. These ceremonies often included human sacrifice and temple prostitution.”
- Baal, Encyclopedia Mythica

Although the observance of these rituals was sometimes condemned by religious movements, it never truly disappeared.


“The religion of the god Baal was widely accepted among the ancient Jews, and although it was put down at times, it was never permanently stamped out. Kings and other royalty of the ten Biblical tribes worshiped the god. The ordinary people ardently worshiped this sun god too because their prosperity depended on the productivity of their crops and livestock. The god’s images were erected on many buildings. Within the religion there appeared to be numerous priests and various classes of devotees. During the ceremonies they wore appropriate robes. The ceremonies included burning incense, and offering burnt sacrifices, occasionally consisting of human victims. The officiating priests danced around the altars, chanting frantically and cutting themselves with knives to inspire the attention and compassion of the god.”
- Ibid.

As a sun god, Baal’s worship involved human sacrifice and fire. Today, in the occult-elite ruled America, this time period often equals fire (or gun fire) and death. These rites were even mentioned in the Bible:


“They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal–something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.”
- Jeremiah 19:5

From the Babylonian, Assyrian and Phoenician civilizations of the Middle-East (their Mystery religions come from the same point origin), the cult of Baal spread to distant civilizations, such as the Celts, who observed Beltane rituals on May 1st (Beltane originates from the word “Baal”). While the observance of Baal rituals differed from one civilization to another, they were nevertheless grounded in the same occult concepts of numerology and sacrifice. In other words, they were all tapping into the same magickal knowledge.

Today’s occult elite still observes these rites, but with one major difference: They are now carried out on unsuspecting civilians and spread across the world through mass media. Fed and amplified by the fear and trauma of the masses, these mega-rituals are seen by all, but only celebrated by the occult elite. More than ever, we are dealing with Black Magick.

Other sites dedicated to occult numerology have published information emphasizing the importance of this time period.


“April 19 – May 1 – Blood Sacrifice To The Beast, a most critical 13-day period. Fire sacrifice is required on April 19.

April 19 is the first day of the 13-day Satanic ritual day relating to fire – the fire god, Baal, or Molech/Nimrod (the Sun God), also known as the Roman god, Saturn (Satan/Devil). This day is a major human sacrifice day, demanding fire sacrifice with an emphasis on children. This day is one of the most important human sacrifice days, and as such, has had some very important historic events occur on this day.”
- Occult Holidays and Sabbaths, Cutting Edge

Another article briefly describes the elements required to carry out the elite’s mega-rituals.


“The human sacrifice required during many of these occult dates needs to contain the following elements, each one of which is exaggerated to the highest possible degree:

1. Trauma, stress, and mental anguish, sheer terror
2. The final act in the drama should be destruction by a fire; preferably a conflagration.
3. People must die as human sacrifices, especially children, since The Darkness views younger human sacrifice as most desirable”
- Advent of Deception
Of course, not every event that occurs during that time period is related to Illuminati human sacrifice. However, most of the events mentioned above fit right in the mega-ritual “criteria” checklists. If you look carefully at the facts surrounding each one of these events, you might conclude that they were either carried out by government officials or blamed on mind-controlled patsies. Most of these events are absurdly gratuitous, generating even more trauma and causing people to wonder “what kind of evil people would do such a thing?” Unfortunately, these evil people rule us, and the same events are then used to further extremist political agendas.

The powers that be have become masters at combining pragmatic politics with occult rituals.

In Conclusion
Those who know about occult calendars enter the second half of April wondering if something horrific is about to happen. Sadly, every few years, it does, and the public is traumatized with a senseless and violent event. Almost every time, a closer look at the event leads to strange and suspicious facts, and, more often than not, hints towards an inside job. While many will ascribe the occurrence of these events during the end of April to coincidence, the fact remains: Mass violent events involving death and fire happen regularly during the same time period that is occultly dedicated to Baal, who is worshipped through fire and human sacrifice. Whether this is all done on purpose or just the result of some crazy universal synchronicity, the fact is still there and cannot be disputed.

Incidentally, the compound that was burned down in the 1993 Waco Massacre was named Mount Carmel Center. In the Bible, Mount Carmel was where Elijah defied the prophets of Baal, challenging them to pray to Baal until he lit a fire in front of them. No fire was lit. Was the fire at Mount Carmel Center a symbolic revenge of Baal?

The Vigilant Citizen

Look At What We Have Become…

In our Founding Father’s day, the practice of VIRTUE was a crown of honor, not a bigot’s badge of shame. My beloved, just look what we as a nation have become today! We are a nation of godless, narcissistic, self-gratifying, infanticidal murderers - pornographic, sexually deviant, perverse, callous, adulterous, drug addicts and drunks, using the First Amendment as a license to transgress natural laws and moral absolutes in the name of secular human rights. Our American families are truly decimated!

In our Founding Father’s day, the practice of VIRTUE was a crown of honor, not a bigot’s badge of shame.


 

Our children are godless, desensitized, brain-washed and dumbed-down by Hollywood, the music industry, the delusional make-believe worlds of video games, text messaging and various forms of electronic wizardry. They have become Facebook addicts in publishing their private little lives. They have become desensitized to the violent world in which they live. They see all things through the prism of narcissism, pluralism and relativism, and they are oblivious to basic truths of absolutes and natural laws required for a healthy society and Almighty God's solutionfor fallen man. They are ever-growing in knowledge but ignorant to the core regarding common sense, and "dumb as a rock" in simple social skills. The remnant of our children who do not possess these reprobate qualities of our secular American culture are labeled as “bigots,” “squares” and “haters” by the masses of America’s reprobate society (1 Peter 3:16; 4:4).

Even Sodom and Gomorrah practiced somewhat sound fiscal policies and their land prospered but they were wicked, violent and godless to the core.

 

All of this talk today of saving our economy without any sound moral solutions for the ravished family unit is the height of insanity. My dear friend, can't you not see that we are at the end and are presently living the "jungle" lifestyle and existence? Even Sodom and Gomorrah practiced somewhat sound fiscal policies and their land prospered (Gen 3:10-12, 21-23), but they were wicked, violent and godless to the core and were destroyed (Gen.13:13; Jude 1:7)! Almighty God set these as an example and warning to all who follow in their godless steps of blatant and willful violation of His divinely ordained Natural Laws and Moral Absolutes. Almighty God’s wrath is on all such immorality and the base cultures and societies who practice such. How then can we as a nation ever escape (Rom. 1:18-32; Gal. 6:7; Jude, 1:7).

How can any nation survive when ALL sound judgment, morality, personal responsibility and the healthy fear of the coming judgment of Almighty God is scoffed at.

How can any nation survive when ALL sound judgment, morality, personal responsibility and the healthy fear of the coming judgment of Almighty God is scoffed at (1 Peter 4:4; 2 Peter 3:3-4)? My friends, all proclaimers of this message are labeled as "evil" and "haters" by those who are governed by their unbridled passions, i.e., Fallen man(Rom. 5:12-19).
.
 

Today as we see the light dwindling out of America’s torch of freedom, may our hope NOT be found in vain (empty), man-made “solutions of the hour” and hollow promises and solutions like "fiscal conservatism will save or nation". That straw man can NEVER provide a remedy for the desperate needs and dire ills of humanity (Isa. 53:6; 64:6, Jer. 17:5-7, 9-10; John 3:16-17; Acts 4:12; Rom. 7:24-25; Gal. 1:4).


May your attention be focused - as a laser - on Almighty God, His Word and His saving remedies which are ONLY found in Jesus Christ(1 Cor. 1:30).


Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior according to God’s Holy Word? My friend, may you be sure to know Him in spirit and truth (John 4:24), for ALL your eternal destiny is staked upon it.


The Kingdom of Heaven is TRULY at hand!


DJP I.F.

Child Hunger Is Exploding In Greece

The world is heading into a horrific economic nightmare, and an inordinate amount of the suffering is going to fall on innocent children.  If you want to get an idea of what America is going to look like in the not too distant future, just check out what is happening in Greece.  

At this point, Greece is experiencing a full-blown economic depression.  As I have written about previously, the unemployment rate in Greece has now risen to 27 percent, which is much higher than the peak unemployment rate that the U.S. economy experienced during the Great Depression of the 1930s.  And as you will read about below, child hunger is absolutely exploding in Greece right now.  Some families are literally trying to survive on pasta and ketchup.  But don't think for a moment that it can't happen here.  Sadly, the truth is that child hunger is already rising very rapidly in our poverty-stricken cities.  Never before have we had so many Americans unable to take care of themselves.  

Food stamp enrollment and child homelessness have soared to brand new all-time records, and there are actually thousands of Americans that are so poor that they live in tunnels underneath our cities.  But for millions of other Americans, the suffering is not quite so dramatic.  

Instead, they just watch their hopes and their dreams slowly slip away as they struggle to find a way to make it from month to month.  There are millions of parents that lead lives that are filled with constant stress and anxiety as they try to figure out how to provide the basics for their children.  How do you tell a child that you can't give them any dinner even though you have been trying as hard as you can?  What many families go through on a regular basis is absolutely heartbreaking.  Unfortunately, more poor families slip through the cracks with each passing day, and these are supposedly times in which we are experiencing an "economic recovery".  So what are things going to look like when the next major economic downturn strikes?

A recent New York Times article detailed the horrifying child hunger that we are witnessing in Greece right now.  At some schools there are reports of children actually begging for food from their classmates...

As an elementary school principal, Leonidas Nikas is used to seeing children play, laugh and dream about the future. But recently he has seen something altogether different, something he thought was impossible in Greece: children picking through school trash cans for food; needy youngsters asking playmates for leftovers; and an 11-year-old boy, Pantelis Petrakis, bent over with hunger pains.

“He had eaten almost nothing at home,” Mr. Nikas said, sitting in his cramped school office near the port of Piraeus, a working-class suburb of Athens, as the sound of a jump rope skittered across the playground. He confronted Pantelis’s parents, who were ashamed and embarrassed but admitted that they had not been able to find work for months. Their savings were gone, and they were living on rations of pasta and ketchup.

Could you imagine that happening to your children or your grandchildren?

Don't think that it can't happen.  Just a few years ago the Greek middle class was vibrant and thriving.

And we are starting to see hunger explode in other European countries as well.  For example, in the UK the number of people receiving emergency food rations has increased by 170 percent over the past year.

This is one of the reasons why I get upset when people say that "things are getting better".  Yes, the stock market has been setting record highs lately, but things are most definitely not getting better.

Even during this false bubble of debt-fueled economic stability that we are enjoying right now, we continue to see hunger and poverty rise dramatically in America.

Since Barack Obama has been president, the number of Americans on food stamps has grown from 32 million to more than 47 million.

Will we all be on food stamps eventually?

Will we all become dependent on the government for our survival at some point?

According to the Boston Herald, even Tamerlan Tsarnaev was receiving government welfare benefits...

Marathon bombings mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits even as he was delving deep into the world of radical anti-American Islamism, the Herald has learned.

State officials confirmed last night that Tsarnaev, slain in a raging gun battle with police last Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter. The state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said those benefits ended in 2012 when the couple stopped meeting income eligibility limits.

Isn't that crazy?

And yes, there are some people out there that are abusing the system.  In fact, the cost of food stamp fraud has risen sharply toapproximately $750 million in recent years.

But most of the people on these programs really need the help.  Thanks to our incredibly foolish economic policies, there are not enough good jobs for everyone and there never will be again.  The percentage of Americans that are unable to take care of themselves is going to continue to rise, and the suffering that we are witnessing right now is going to get much, much worse.

Not that things aren't really, really bad already.  Here are some signs that child hunger in America has already started to explode...

#1 Today, approximately 17 million children in the United States are facing food insecurity.  In other words, that means that "one in four children in the country is living without consistent access to enough nutritious food to live a healthy life."

#2 We are told that we live in the "wealthiest nation" on the planet, and yet more than one out of every four children in the United States is enrolled in the food stamp program.

#3 The average food stamp benefit breaks down to approximately $4 per person per day.

#4 It is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps before they reach the age of 18.

#5 It may be hard to believe, but approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are currently living in homes that are either considered to be either "low income" or impoverished.

#6 The number of children living on $2.00 a day or less in the United States has grown to 2.8 million.  That number has increased by 130 percent since 1996.

#7 According to Feeding America, "households with children reported food insecurity at a significantly higher rate than those without children, 20.6 percent compared to 12.2 percent".

#8 According to a Feeding America hunger study, more than 37 million Americans are now being served by food pantries and soup kitchens.

#9 For the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless.  That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.

#10 Approximately 20 million U.S. children rely on school meal programs to keep from going hungry.

#11 One university study estimates that child poverty costs the U.S. economy 500 billion dollars each year.

#12 In Miami, 45 percent of all children are living in poverty.

#13 In Cleveland, more than 50 percent of all children are living in poverty.

#14 According to a recently released report, 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.

For many more facts about the dramatic explosion of poverty in this country, please see my previous article entitled "21 Statistics About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Everyone Should Know".

Unfortunately, most of the time statistics don't really tell the whole story.  Numbers alone cannot really communicate the soul-crushing despair that millions of American families are enduring on a daily basis at this point.

How can numbers communicate the pain that a child feels when her grandmother does not eat because there is not enough food for everyone in the family?  But this is what some families in Americaactually go through because there is not enough money...

Vanyshia tells about the sacrifices her Grandmother makes so that she and her siblings can eat. “Sometimes my Grandma can’t even eat because she has to feed me and my brother and sister. Sometimes I don’t eat as much as I want to because I leave some for my Grandma because I don’t want her to sit there and starve. Sometimes she doesn’t have enough money to buy food, so she has to go to the bank and borrow money. It makes me feel sad. I don’t want her to be hungry. I just feel sad sometimes,” says Vanyshia.

Things can be particularly tough when you are a single parent.  The BBC recently profiled a single mother that is struggling to raise two young children in Iowa...

"We don't get three meals a day like breakfast, lunch and then dinner," says Kaylie. "When I feel hungry I feel sad and droopy."

Kaylie and Tyler live with their mother Barbara, who used to work in a factory. After losing her job, she was entitled to unemployment benefit and food stamps - this comes to $1,480 (£974) a month.

But they were no longer able to afford to live in their house, which along with bills cost $1,326 (£873) a month, leaving little for food or petrol.

Kaylie supplemented their income by collecting cans along the railway track near their old home - earning between two and five cents per can.

For more examples like this one, I encourage everyone to go watch a recent BBC documentary entitled "America's Poor Kids" that you can see right here.

I wonder why we don't see more stuff like this on the mainstream news in this country?

Could it be that the mainstream media does not want to admit how bad things have really gotten?

All of this is also a reminder that we need to be generous to those in need.  Times are going to get much, much harder than this, and we are all going to need one another.

So do you have any stories of poverty or child hunger from your area of the country to share?  Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below...

Spanish Unemployment Rising At Fastest Rate In A Year

In yet another worse-than-expected macro data point, Spain has just breached the 27% unemployment level - the highest since at least 1976, when data began following dictator Francisco Franco's death. 

At 27.2% this is already higher than the IMF's year-end estimate of 27% suggesting growth estimates are already overly optimistic. What is more concerning is the rate of increase in the joblessness is rising once again. 

The 1.1 percentage point rise is the largest in a year and 177,700 more households now have no actively employed members than a year ago. The greatest fear though, for European leaders and the Spanish people themselves, is the surge in youth unemployment. As we have noted a number of times in the past, the possibility of social unrest is exaggerated significantly by this number and at an incredulous 57.2% of under-25s out of work, Spain is closing in on Greece, according to official data, for the worst youth unemployment situation in Europe.









and youth unemployment is surging towards Greece's levels...





Meanwhile, as far as the world goes, none of that matters...



Zero Hedge

Boston Bombers Had Links to al Qaeda Cells

The surviving Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has every incentive for insisting that he and his brother acted alone and out of “ideological” motives in the Boston Marathon bombings of April 15.

That was predictable.

What is surprising is the acceptance of this claim by his federal interrogators.

He can’t speak because of a wound to the throat. But did they really expect him to write down the names and addresses of his and his brother Tamerlan’s fellow terrorists and associates?

Dzhokhar was formally charged Monday, April 22, with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction. The charge related to the twin bombings of the Boston Marathon causing the deaths of three people including an 8-year old boy and injuring 180 others.

One way or another, the 19-year old Dzhokhtar is condemned to die – whether under a federal court sentence or from his injuries.

If he sticks to his story that they brothers acted alone in the cause of Islam, he dies a “a glorious martyr” to the sacred cause, celebrated across the radical Islamic world as a shining inspiration for more terrorist cells to go forth bearing his name.
Politicians are not the only ones who care about their legacies. To achieve this he must refrain from spilling the beans and lead the FBI inquiry up a blind alley.

DEBKA’s counter-terrorism sources say the investigation’s best bet would be to finally follow up on the treasure trove the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation – the FBS - relayed to Washington in 2011. They not only fingered Tamerlan, who died in a shootout with the Boston police, as a “suspect Islamist terrorist” but revealed that he had toured radical Islamic mosques in Dagestan and Chechnya in search of contacts in jihadist terror groups. The Russians also appended a whole list of terrorist suspects of Caucasian descent in the Boston area.

Also worth following up is Barack Obama’s call to Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 19 to thank him for Moscow’s cooperation n the marathon bombing investigation

What was that about? What made Russian assistance valuable enough for the two presidents to agree on better cooperation between the FBI and the FBS?

And the content of a second conversation that took place at the height of the search for the Boston bombers would be highly relevant too. On April 17, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal arrived unannounced at the White House and was immediately received by President Obama. Our sources report that he too handed a high-value dossier from confidential files in Riyadh containing data on clandestine Saudi terrorist cells in the Boston area.

By digging into an unsolved two-year old triple murder, the Boston Globe lifted a corner of the veil on the Tsarnaev brothers’ violent past in the service of radical Islam. The Boston police consequently reopened the case this week and are looking at Tamerlan for the murder of three young Jews found with slashed throats in a Waltham, Massachusetts apartment on Sept. 11, 2011. Brendan Mess was Tamerlan’s close friend, Erik Weissman, a Brandeis University graduate and Raphael Teken a devout Jew.

Look again at the date: The murders took place on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.




DEBKAfile