FOX Host Blasts Network For Covering Up McCain Links To ISIS Leader

"They Just Want The Money!" How The IRS Can Seize Accounts On Suspicion Alone

“How can this happen?” Ms. Hinders said in a recent interview. “Who takes your money before they prove that you’ve done anything wrong with it?”

The federal government does.

*  *  *

The topic of civil asset forfeiture has been high on our agenda recently asfederal 'agents' discover how to steal Americans' hard-earned cash with zero repurcussions , and decide unilaterally how much cash a 'common man' is allowed to carry; but as The NY Times reports, the escalation to The IRS brings a whole new world of possibilities with regard asset confiscation based on no actual crime being proved...

As The NY Times reports,

For almost 40 years, Carole Hinders has dished out Mexican specialties at her modest cash-only restaurant. For just as long, she deposited the earnings at a small bank branch a block away - until last year, when two tax agents knocked on her door and informed her that they had seized her checking account, almost $33,000.

The Internal Revenue Service agents did not accuse Ms. Hinders of money laundering or cheating on her taxes — in fact, she has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the money was seized solely because she had deposited less than $10,000 at a time, which they viewed as an attempt to avoid triggering a required government report.

Her money was seized under an increasingly controversial area of law known as civil asset forfeiture, which allows law enforcement agents to take property they suspect of being tied to crime even if no criminal charges are filed. Law enforcement agencies get to keep a share of whatever is forfeited.

Critics say this incentive has led to the creation of a law enforcement dragnet, with more than 100 multiagency task forces combing through bank reports, looking for bank accounts to seize.

Using a law designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking their cash, the government has gone after run-of-the-mill business owners and wage earners without so much as an allegation that they have committed serious crimes. The government can take the money without ever filing a criminal complaint, and the owners are left to prove they are innocent. Many give up.

“They’re going after people who are really not criminals,” said David Smith, a former federal prosecutor who is now a forfeiture expert and lawyer in Virginia. “They’re middle-class citizens who have never had any trouble with the law.”

On Thursday, in response to questions from The New York Times, the I.R.S. announced that it would curtail the practice, focusing instead on cases where the money is believed to have been acquired illegally or seizure is deemed justified by “exceptional circumstances.”

...

But the Institute for Justice, a Washington-based public interest law firm that is seeking to reform civil forfeiture practices, analyzed structuring data from the I.R.S., which made 639 seizures in 2012, up from 114 in 2005. Only one in five was prosecuted as a criminal structuring case.

The practice has swept up dairy farmers in Maryland, an Army sergeant in Virginia saving for his children’s college education and Ms. Hinders, 67, who has borrowed money, strained her credit cards and taken out a second mortgage to keep her restaurant going.

The $10,000 loophole line in the sand...

Under the Bank Secrecy Act, banks and other financial institutions must report cash deposits greater than $10,000.But since many criminals are aware of that requirement, banks also are supposed to report any suspicious transactions, including deposit patterns below $10,000. Last year, banks filed more than 700,000 suspicious activity reports.Owners who are caught up in structuring cases often cannot afford to fight. The median amount seized by the I.R.S. was $34,000, according to the Institute for Justice analysis, while legal costs can easily mount to $20,000 or more.

There is nothing illegal about depositing less than $10,000cash unless it is done specifically to evade the reporting requirement. But often a mere bank statement is enough for investigators to obtain a seizure warrant. In one Long Island case, the police submitted almost a year’s worth of daily deposits by a business, ranging from $5,550 to $9,910. The officer wrote in his warrant affidavit that based on his training and experience, the pattern “is consistent with structuring.” The government seized $447,000 from the business, a cash-intensive candy and cigarette distributor that has been run by one family for 27 years.

read more here...

As one lawyer defending against the IRS' aggressive 'stealing' tactics concludes...

“I don’t think they’re really interested in anything,” Mr. Potashnik said of the prosecutors. “They just want the money.”

Credit to Zero Hedge 

The UK will leave the European Union Oct 2014

Massive blasts, fierce fighting: Iraq armed forces battle ISIS

The UN Has Laid the Foundation and Location For World War III

The UN Has Laid the Foundation for World War III

Dating back over a 100 years, the United States laid claim to much of the Arctic region.The Arctic region is known to hold large amounts of untapped oil and gas reserves. The United Nations previously canceled all land claims in the Arctic region. This is in response to these territories being at the center of several disputes between the United States, Russia, Canada, to a large degree, and it also includes Norway and Denmark, to a smaller degree.

Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was finalized in 1982, countries can lay claim to the ocean floor well beyond their borders so long as they can provide convincing scientific evidence to prove that a particular seabed is an extension of their continental shelf. Already, countries have sovereign rights to resources within 200 nautical miles of their territorial waterways. For a country to determine whether they have economic sovereignty beyond that distance, the UN agreement requires comprehensive mapping that establishes some sort of geologic justification for the claim. And where the Arctic is concerned, Canada, the US, Norway, Russia, and Denmark have been amassing scientific evidence for more than a decade in an effort to increase their piece of this resource-rich pie.

The process of determining the national origins of several sea shelves is a multi-generational endeavor. The United Nations is dragging its feet on making any determination as to the validity of claims upon the Arctic region. It appears that the failing world’s national economies cannot afford to wait 20, 30, 40 years before laying claim to such a vast amount of wealth. This is a prescription for war and I submit that this is being done deliberately by the globalists controlling the UN.

The UN’s Motivation to Start WW III

The United Nations is ultimately controlled by the global elite. In fact, the origins of the modern UN owes it location and prominence to David Rockefeller who provided both the seed money and the land in New York City for its present location.

The ubiquitous purpose underlying the shenanigans of the global elite is to establish order out of chaos, or more accurately, the New World Order out of manufactured chaos. The best way to build the New World Order is to destroy the old one and the most efficient method of doing that is creating the conditions that will lead to World War III.

While all eyes are on Ukraine, Syria and Iran, we should be focused on the North Pole. For it is in the Arctic that war drums are beating. By purposely delaying the determination of rights of claim to Arctic land containing vast amounts of mineral resources, the United Nations has all but guaranteed that a war will be fought to determine control over the region and its resources. The remaining part of this article will describe the arms race and secret war games being conducted in preparation for World War III in the Arctic.

A Telling Interview with Sweden’s Agneta Nordberg

Agneta Nordberg is the Vice Chair of the Swedish Peace Council,  a member of the Steering Committee in The International Peace Bureau (IPB) and she is highly concerned that Sweden is being used by the United States and its NATO allies to conduct their war games on Swedish soil. Sweden is a supposed neutral country and has signed agreements in opposition to exactly what is going on which are secret war games on its soil. And if it were not for a Norwegian military plane crash into MountKebnekaise, the world would never have discovered these secret war games taking place in northern Sweden and Norway. Nordberg stated that the reason for the war games is because of the melting ice which has exposed the vast amounts of mineral resources, the largest in the world. It is not an overstatement to proclaim that whoever controls the Arctic, will someday control the world’s economy.

Seven Years of Secret Arctic U.S. War Games

Since 2007, there have  been massive NATO Arctic war maneuvers in both Sweden and Norway with all of NATO, and specifically, the United States. One of the war games was dubbed the Nordic Air Meet, in 2007, where most of NATO took part in massive war games designed to protect interests in the Arctic from Russian incursion. Again, in 2009, operation  Loyal Arrow, was held which was the largest air war game in history involving the northern part of Sweden, Norway, and also in Finland. These Arctic war games have continued with the Cold Response №1, a winter maneuver in the northern part of Sweden and northern Norway. And another war game took place in March of 2012, known as the Cold Response №2.

In a very provocative move, both NATO and the U.S. have installed an advanced radar system only a few kilometers from the Russian border known as the Vardo radar system. Vardo  is  dangerous because it is embedded within a missile defense system. This system is a checkmate against Russian offensive missile weapons systems located near the Arctic. The installation of Vardo is an act of aggression and, in some circles, is considered an act of war.

Russia’s Military Objectives

Follow the money and all questions will be answered with regard to America’s enemies and their designs on control of the Arctic, most notably, the Russian government and its military. A clear picture on why Russian soldiers are being spotted in many locations in Alaska is also becoming transparent. This story starts with the giveaway of seven oil rich Islands which should be a part of Alaska but was given away to Russia when Obama was elected President. The giveaway of these Islands constitutes treason by Obama.

Senator Begich from Alaska wrote a letter in response to my previous claims of treason with regard to the giveaway of these Islands and said that these Islands always belonged to Russia and the proof for this dates back to 1867. Then this should have never been a point of contention in the Alaska media, and it was, when the transfer was made (See the map featured below of the disputed Islands that appeared repeatedly in the Alaskan media at the time of the transfer). My military sources should not be concerned with this giveaway if this was only a benign giveaway, but they are highly concerned as they have pointed out to me that three of the Islands could be ideal origination points for a Russian invasion of Alaska. The other four Islands serve to support Russian military forays into the mineral rich Arctic region. The duplicitous nature of the Begich letter, published by a reader, in the comment section of my website, should be cause for concern because the emerging facts suggest that Russia is preparing to conquer and possess the mineral rich resources of the Arctic.

Operating under the notion that a picture is worth a thousand words, let’s take a look at the seven disputed Islands and Russian mineral retrieval activities in the Arctic.

Now compare the Russian Arctic mineral retrieval activities and the military significance should jump off the page at the reader. There are additional Russian Arctic territorial claims which conflict with US territorial claims. Russia is making several territorial claims in relation to several Arctic shelf areas and is planning to defend their claims to the United Nations. After reading the final section of this article, I believe the Russian intention of obtaining UN approval is merely window dressing. They are preparing to take what they want by whatever means necessary.

For the Russians to realize their Arctic goals, Alaska would have to be neutralized and the groundwork has been laid for this eventuality. Additionally, a successful Russian takeover of the Arctic would depend on the neutralization of America’s nuclear capabilities. This objective is being carried out by Obama as I write these words.

To Obama and Begich,  I would ask both of you if this is just a misunderstanding which can be explained away by using the word, COINCIDENCE, because we know that in the shadowy world of Washington DC and the corporate controlled media, there is no such thing as a conspiracy. Conspiracies aside, Obama and Begich will have fun explaining the following publicized military activities of the Russians which never really died.

Judge By Their Actions, Not By Their Words

All five of the previously mentioned nations, along with China, have territorial and mineral claims with regard to the Arctic and these claims conflict with each other and form the breeding ground for WW III.

The Russians are in war mode, Arctic war mode. I do not see how any reasonable person could read the following accounts of Russian military buildup in the Arctic and not conclude that the spark for WW III will not begin here.

Russia is adding 40 new naval ships to its nuclear arsenal in 2014. By the end of 2015, Russia will have nearly as many naval ships as the United States.

Retrofitted combat aircraft from Russia’s Northern Fleet will extend the ranges of their patrol flights over the Arctic in 2014 using a network of revamped Soviet-era airfields.

The Russian fleet’s Tu-142 and Il-38 reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare aircraft carried out over 30 patrol missions in the Arctic last year. The Russians have announced their intentions to carry out many more such missions.

Ballistic missile submarines make up one part of Russia’s strategic nuclear triad along with land-based ICBMs and the Russian bomber force. The Borey submarine is Russia’s first post-Soviet ballistic missile submarine class and will form the mainstay of the strategic submarine fleet, replacing aging Typhoon, Delta-3 and Delta-4 class boats. The creation of the Borey signals that the Russian economy is in war mode.

Russia ultimately expects to manufacture eight Borey-class submarines by the year 2020. People constantly are asking me for time frames connected to these events and I dismiss such questions as a fool’s errand. However, the deployment of these submarines by 2020 may provide a clue as to the timetable that the globalists are operating under. Oh yes, make no mistake about it, this coming war will not happen without the blessings of the Bastards from Basel.

Additionally, the Russians are commissioning other submarines as well. Russia’s first Project 885M Yasen-class attack submarine, the Severodvinsk, was handed over to the navy at end of 2013. This submarine has been under construction since 1993. This fact goes a long way to justify the claims made by several Russian defectors that the Soviet Union never really fell and always planned to attack the United States at some future date.

Conclusion

If enough people were to hold Begich’s and Obama’s feet to the fire, they would have some very difficult explaining to do. I think it is little wonder that Congress is in the process of taking capital punishment off of the books for a conviction of treason.

Many are probably wondering about the presence of Russian troops in the lower 48 states. And what about that bilateral agreement between FEMA and the Russian military to bring thousands of soldiers to US soil.

Credit to Common Sense

Egypt’s President Hearing Turkey’s War Drums

The sound of bombs, grenades, and war drums are being heard in Egypt. The sounds of the recent terrorist attack that killed more than two dozen Egyptian soldiers is also being accompanied by the sound of war drums from a nation to Egypt’s north.

The President of Egypt has declared that the recent terror attack in the Sinai was funded by sources outside Egypt. Though Abdel Fatah el-Sisi did not say specifically who he meant, Shoebat.com has been reporting for some time that the Muslim Brotherhood has been finding very safe harbor inside Turkey.

The AP reported:

Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said Saturday that an assault on an army checkpoint in the Sinai Peninsula that killed 30 troops was a “foreign-funded operation” and vowed to take drastic action against militants.

In thundering remarks delivered before cameras ahead of a military funeral for the slain troops,el-Sissi said there are foreign powers that want to “break the back of Egypt,” without elaborating. He vowed to take drastic measures to uproot the militants and said Egypt is engaged in an “extensive war” that will last a long time.

“There is a big conspiracy against us,” he said while standing with army commanders ahead of the funeral.

Militants launched a complex assault on the checkpoint Friday that involved a car bomb possibly detonated by a suicide attacker, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs placed to target rescuers.

Egypt declared a state of emergency and imposed a 5 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew in the restive northern part of the peninsula after Friday’s assault, the deadliest against the army in decades.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but it bore the hallmarks of the extremist group Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which has carried out several attacks on security forces since the military overthrew Islamist President Mohammed Morsi last year amid massive protests against him.

El-Sissi said the aim of the attack was to “break the will of Egypt and the Egyptians as well as the will of the Egyptian army, which is considered a pillar of Egypt.”

He called on Egyptians “to be aware of what is being hatched against us” and to be “vigilant and steadfast with the army and the police.”

There has been perhaps no nation more aggressive toward Egypt than Turkey. Mursi’s removal was a huge blow to Turkey’s plans – HUGE. Ever since, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been hard at work on many fronts. Many Muslim Brotherhood leaders who fled Egypt have taken up residence in Turkey. Check out this propaganda video from Turkey earlier this year.

As Shoebat.com reported, it’s clearly a shot at Egypt, which convicted 529 Muslim Brotherhood terrorists to death. This was clearly a way for Turkey to express solidarity with the Brotherhood (the four-fingered gesture originated in Cairo after Mursi’s fall as a symbol of resistance):

Credit to Shoebat

Top Iranian Adviser: Obama is 'Weakest of US Presidents'

President Barack Obama is "the weakest of U.S. presidents" and his time in the White House has been "humiliating," a top Iranian official said in an interview with the country'sFars News Agency, according to a translation provided to The Free Beacon.

"Obama is the weakest of U.S. presidents, he had humiliating defeats in the region," said Ali Younesi, senior adviser to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, in comments coming as the United States is trying to persuade his country to join the international coalition fighting against the Islamic State.

His words could also be a sign that the Rouhani regime does not intend to concede to the United States' demands concerning Iran's nuclear program.

U.S. Under-Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told Reuters Thursday that Iran will be considered responsible if a deal to curb the nuclear program is not reached in exchange for relief from extensive sanctions placed on the country.

The United States, along with Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia have set a deadline of Nov. 24 for reaching a deal on the sanctions, and Sherman said Iran's best hope is to reach an agreement.

But if Younesi's words disparaging Obama are any indication, that agreement may still be much further away.

"Americans witnessed their greatest defeats in Obama's era: Terrorism expanded, [the] U.S. had huge defeats under Obama [and] that is why they want to compromise with Iran," Younesi said.




Credit to NewsMax

50 Percent Of American Workers Make Less Than 28,031 Dollars A Year

The Social Security Administration has just released wage statistics for 2013, and the numbers are startling.  Last year, 50 percent of all American workers made less than $28,031, and 39 percent of all American workers made less than $20,000.  If you worked a full-time job at $10 an hour all year long with two weeks off, you would make $20,000.  So the fact that 39 percent of all workers made less than that amount is rather telling.  This is more evidence of the declining quality of the jobs in this country.  In many homes in America today, both parents are working multiple jobs in a desperate attempt to make ends meet. Our paychecks are stagnant while the cost of living just continues to soar.  And the jobs that are being added to the economy pay a lot less than the jobs lost in the last recession.  In fact, it has been estimated that the jobs that have been created since the last recession pay an average of 23 percent less than the jobs that were lost.  We are witnessing the slow-motion destruction of the middle class, and very few of our leaders seem to care.

The "average" yearly wage in America last year was just $43,041.  But after accounting for inflation, that was actually worse than the year before...

American paychecks shrank last year, just-released data show, further eroding the public’s purchasing power, which is so vital to economic growth.

Average pay for 2013 was $43,041 — down $79 from the previous year when measured in 2013 dollars. Worse, average pay fell $508 below the 2007 level, my analysis of the new Social Security Administration data shows.

Flat or declining average pay is a major reason so many Americans feel that the Great Recession never ended for them. A severe job shortage compounds that misery not just for workers but also for businesses trying to profit from selling goods and services.

Average pay declined in 59 of the 60 levels of worker pay the government reports each October.

And please keep in mind that "average pay" is really skewed by the millionaires and billionaires at the top end of the spectrum.

Median pay in 2013 was just $28,031.02.  That means that 50 percent of American workers made less than that number, and 50 percent of American workers made more than that number.

Here are some more numbers from the report that the Social Security Administration just released...

-39 percent of American workers made less than $20,000 last year.

-52 percent of American workers made less than $30,000 last year.

-63 percent of American workers made less than $40,000 last year.

-72 percent of American workers made less than $50,000 last year.

I don't know about you, but those numbers are deeply troubling to me.

It has been estimated that it takes approximately $50,000 a year to support a middle class lifestyle for a family of four, and so the fact that 72 percent of all workers make less than that amount shows how difficult it is for families that try to get by with just a single breadwinner.

The way that our economy is structured now, both parents usually have to work as hard as they can just to pay the bills.

But there was one group of Americans that did see their incomes actually increase last year.

Those making over 50 million dollars had their pay increase by an average of $12.8 million in 2013.

For everyone else, the news was not good.

And of course this is a trend that has been going on for a long time.

Posted below is a chart that comes from the Federal Reserve.  It shows how real median household income in the United States has declined since the year 2000...

Meanwhile, the cost of living has continued to rise at a steady pace.

Needless to say, this is putting a tremendous squeeze on the middle class.  With each passing day, more Americans are losing their spots in the middle class and this has pushed government dependence to an all-time high.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans now live in a home that receives money from the government each month.  This is completely and totally unsustainable, but our long-term economic problems just keep getting worse.

Our politicians have stood by as millions upon millions of good paying jobs have been shipped out of the country.  Millions of other middle class jobs have been lost to technology.  This has resulted in intense competition for the middle class jobs that remain.

And at this point we are even losing lots of lower paying retail jobs.  For example, it is being reported that Sears plans to close 110 more stores and lay off more than 6,000 workers.  Sears says that the report "isn't accurate", but it isn't denying that stores will be closed either...

In an email to USA Today, Sears spokesman Howard Riefs said the store count and closures "isn't accurate,'' but did not provide store closures or layoff numbers.

"As we stated in our (second quarter earnings report), we disclosed that we would be closing unprofitable stores as leases expire and in some cases will accelerate closings when it is economically prudent. And that we would consider closing additional stores during the remainder of the year,'' Riefs said. "Make no mistake, we believe the store will continue to play an integral role in our transformation, however, if a store is not generating a profit, it is straightforward that the store should be considered for closure."

No matter how many stores Sears does end up closing over the next few months, the truth is that our economy is a complete and total mess at this point.

Our politicians and the mainstream media are trying to put a happy face on everything, but the cold, hard numbers prove that we are not anywhere close to where we were prior to the last recession.

Because it is so difficult to find a good job in America today, I often recommend to people that they should consider starting their own businesses.

But thanks to the bureaucratic control freaks in the Obama administration and in our state governments, small business ownership in America todayis at an all-time low.  It is almost as if they don't want the "little guy" to win.  Every avenue of prosperity for the middle class is under assault, and there does not appear to be much hope that this will change any time soon.

And the truly frightening thing is that this is about as good as things are going to get for the middle class.  We are rapidly approaching the next major wave of our long-term economic decline, but that is a topic for a future article.

Credit to Economic Collapse