Catholic Cardinal McCarrick Embraces Islam

Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick offered Islamic religious phrases and insisted that Islam shares foundational rules with Christianity, during a Sept. 10 press conference in D.C.

“In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate,” McCarrick said as he introduced himself to the audience at a meeting arranged by the Muslim Public Affairs Council. That praise of the Islamic deity is an important phrase in Islam, is found more than 100 times in the Koran, and is akin to the Catholic prayer, ”In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

McCarrick next claimed that “Catholic social teaching is based on the dignity of the human person… [and] as you study the holy Koran, as you study Islam, basically, this is what Muhammad the prophet, peace be upon him, has been teaching.”

McCarrick was 71 when 19 Muslims brought Islam to the public eye by murdering 3,000 Americans on 9/11. He is one of the 213 Cardinals of the Catholic church, but is too old to vote in church debates.

“Either the cardinal has studied the whole thing and does not know what he’s talking about, or he is making a somewhat misleading statement,” said Michael Meunier, head of the U.S. Copts Association. “The practice of the Muslim majority people that adhere to the Koran… have proven that [claim of equivalence] is not correct,” he told The Daily Caller during a Sept. 11 trip to Jordan.

“Has Cardinal McCarrick converted to Islam?” asked a scornful critic, Robert Spencer, the best-selling author of many books on Islam.

“‘Peace be upon him’ is a phrase Muslims utter after they say the name of [their reputed] prophet… [so] probably he is unaware of the unintended Islamic confession of faith he has just made,”said Spencer, who runs the Jihadwatch.org website.

McCarrick is wrong to say “that Islam teaches the dignity of every human person,“ Spencer said. “Actually, it teaches a sharp dichotomy between the Muslims, [who are called] ‘the best of people’ and the unbelievers [are called] ‘the most vile of created beings,’” Spencer told TheDC.

Credit to The Daily Caller

OBAMA’S UN AMBASSADOR ADMITS FIGHT AGAINST ISIS DESIGNED TO TAKE OUT ASSAD IN SYRIA

Obama’s United Nations ambassador Samantha Power told Chuck Todd of NBC on Sunday the real purpose of the fight against ISIS is to overthrow al-Assad and the Syrian government.

Power said the “moderate” Free Syrian Army (FSA) will receive an “infusion of support” in its battle against both ISIS and the Syrian government which is, according to Power and the United States, “backed by Hezbollah, Iran, Russia, etc.”

CIA’s Hydra: FSA, al-Nusra and ISIS

Omitted from the discussion is the fact ISIS, al-Nusra and the FSA have merged forces.

“We are collaborating with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front by attacking the Syrian Army’s gatherings in… Qalamoun,” Bassel Idriss, the commander of an FSA-aligned rebel brigade, told the Lebanese Daily Star earlier this month.

The FSA has lost troops to al-Nusra and other hardcore Islamist groups for more than a year.

In June al-Nusra and ISIS joined forces at Albu Kamal in Syria and al-Qaim in Iraq.

“Fighters feel proud to join al-Nusra because that means power and influence,” Abu Ahmed, the commander of an FSA brigade near Aleppo, told The Guardian in May of 2013.

In September, 2013, one of the largest FSA brigades, the 11th Division, joined al-Nusra.

“This means that the FSA has suddenly lost serious amounts of loyal fighters… it’s basically being swallowed up by Nusra,” an Al Jazeera correspondent in Antakya, Turkey, reported on September 21, 2013.

Reuters, citing sources inside Syria, reported other members of the FSA have joined ISIS.

The Ahl al-Athar, Ibin al-Qa’im, and Aisha factions within the FSA pledged allegiance to ISIS in July, according to Zaman Alwasl, a newspaper based in Homs.

“Al Nusra Front and the state [ISIS] will fully control FSA brigades, fusing them within their extreme and Jihadi ideologies,” the newspaper reported.

Supporting ISIS to Fight ISIS

Obama and Power are attempting to keep the illusion alive that there is a distinction between al-Nusra, ISIS and the FSA when in fact all are creations of U.S., British and Israeli intelligence.

On Sunday The New York Times carried a report saying Iraqis – from people on the street to officials in the highest level of government – believe the CIA is behind ISIS. They fear the manufactured ISIS threat will be used to reintroduce troops in Iraq.

Last August the leader of al-Nusra, Abu-Mohammad al-Jolani, met with two CIA officers and the Saudi deputy minister of defense Prince Salman bin Sultan in Amman, according to former Austrian general, Matthias Ghalem, who quoted Colonel Ahmed al-Naameh, head of the rebel Revolutionary Military Council in southern Syria.

Al-Naameh said two deputies of Robert Stephen Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria, also attended the meeting. It was decided al-Nusra and the FSA would cooperate in the proxy war to depose al-Assad and turn Syria into a failed state like Iraq and Libya.

Ford played a key role in orchestrating the Syrian “resistance” and was and underling to Iraq ambassador John Negroponte, who during his tenure organized death squads in Iraq in a coordinated effort to destabilize the country.

“Since the opening of a new US base in the desert in southwest of Jordan in November 2012… CIA operatives and US special operations troops have covertly trained the militants in groups of 20 to 45 at a time in two-week courses,” al-Alam reported.

In June Aaron Klein reported the U.S. military had trained ISIS terrorists in Jordan.

Previously the German newspaper Der Spiegel reported Americans training “Syrian rebels,” although it was not clear if the Americans worked for private firms or were with the U.S. Army.

Credit to Infowars

China Docks Navy Destroyer In Iran's Strait Of Hormuz Port

Since China fired its first 'official' shot across the Petrodollar bow a year ago, there has been an increasing groundswell of de-dollarization across the world's energy trade (despite Washington's exclamations of 'isolated' non-dollar transactors). The rise of the PetroYuan has not been far from our headlines in the last year, with China increasingly leveraging its rise as an economic power and as the most important incremental market for hydrocarbon exporters, in the Persian Gulf and the former Soviet Union, to circumscribe dollar dominance in global energy - with potentially profound ramifications for America’s strategic position. And now, as AP reports,for the first time in history, China has docked a Navy Destroyer in the Southern Iranian port of Bandar-Abbas - right across the Straits of Hormuz from 'US stronghold-for-now' Bahrain and UAE.

The rise of the PetroYuan has not been far from our headlines in the last year:

China Fires Shot Across Petrodollar Bow: Shanghai Futures Exchange May Price Crude Oil Futures In Yuan

Guest Post: From PetroDollar To PetroYuan – The Coming Proxy Wars

The Rise Of The Petroyuan And The Slow Erosion Of Dollar Hegemony

And now, as AP reports, for the first time in history,China has docked a Navy Destroyer in a Southern Iranian port of Bandar-Abbas - right across the Straits of Hormuz from 'US stronghold-for-now' Bahrain and UAE.

Adm. Hossein Azad, naval base chief in the southern port of Bandar Abbas, said the four-day visit that began Saturday saw the two navies sharing expertise in the field of marine rescue.

"On the last day of their visit while leaving Iran, the Chinese warships will stage a joint drill in line with mutual collaboration, and exchange of marine and technical information particularly in the field of aid and rescue," said Azad.

The report said the destroyer was accompanied by a logistics ship, and that both were on their way to the Gulf of Aden as a part of an international mission to combat piracy.

...

Last year a Russian naval group docked in the same port on its way back from a Pacific Ocean mission.

The move is also seen part of off efforts by Iran to strike a balance among foreign navies present in the area near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the passageway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of the world's oil is shipped.

U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet is based in nearby Bahrain, on the southern coast of the Gulf.

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Here's why it matters...

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As we concluded previously,

History and logic caution that current practices are not set in stone. With the rise of the “petroyuan,” movement towards a less dollar-centric currency regime in international energy markets—with potentially serious implications for the dollar’s broader standing—is already underway.

As China has emerged as a major player on the global energy scene, it has also embarked on an extended campaign tointernationalise its currency. A rising share of China’s external trade is being denominated and settled in renminbi; issuance of renminbi-denominated financial instruments is growing. China is pursuing a protracted process of capital account liberalisation essential to fullrenminbi internationalisation, and is allowing more exchange rate flexibility for the yuan. The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) now has swap arrangements with over thirty other central banks—meaning that renminbi already effectively functions as a reserve currency.

Chinese policymakers appreciate the “advantages of incumbency” the dollar enjoys; their aim is not for renminbi to replace dollars, but to position the yuanalongside the greenback as a transactional and reserve currency. Besides economic benefits (e.g., lowering Chinese businesses’ foreign exchange costs), Beijing wants—for strategic reasons—to slow further growth of its enormous dollar reserves. China has watched America’s increasing propensity to cut off countries from the U.S. financial system as a foreign policy tool, and worries about Washington trying to leverage it this way; renminbiinternationalisation can mitigate such vulnerability. More broadly, Beijing understands the importance of dollar dominance to American power; by chipping away at it, China can contain excessive U.S. unilateralism.     

China has long incorporated financial instruments into its efforts to access foreign hydrocarbons. Now Beijing wants major energy producers to accept renminbias a transactional currency—including to settle Chinese hydrocarbon purchases—and incorporate renminbi in their central bank reserves. Producers have reason to be receptive. China is, for the vastly foreseeable future, the main incremental market for hydrocarbon producers in the Persian Gulf and former Soviet Union. Widespread expectations of long-termyuan appreciation make accumulatingrenminbi reserves a “no brainer” in terms of portfolio diversification. And, as America is increasingly viewed as a hegemon in relative decline, China is seen as the preeminent rising power. Even for Gulf Arab states long reliant on Washington as their ultimate security guarantor, this makes closer ties to Beijing an imperative strategic hedge. For Russia,deteriorating relations with the United States impel deeper cooperation with China, against what both Moscow and Beijing consider a declining, yet still dangerously flailing and over-reactive, America.

For several years, China has paid for some of its oil imports from Iran with renminbi; in 2012, the PBOC and the UAE Central Bank set up a $5.5 billion currency swap, setting the stage for settling Chinese oil imports from Abu Dhabi in renminbi—an important expansion of petroyuan use in the Persian Gulf. The $400 billion Sino-Russian gas deal that was concluded this year apparently provides for settling Chinese purchases of Russian gas inrenminbi; if fully realised, this would mean an appreciable role for renminbi in transnational gas transactions.

Looking ahead, use of renminbi to settle international hydrocarbon sales will surely increase, accelerating the decline of American influence in key energy-producing regions. It will also make it marginally harder for Washington to finance what China and other rising powers consider overly interventionist foreign policies—a prospect America’s political class has hardly begun to ponder.

Credit to Zero Hedge

Like An Alcoholic, America Must and Will Hit Bottom

Is America on her last legs? Is the end of the Republic, as we have known it, near? A snapshot view of the emotional, physical and financial health of our nation makes it appear that we are on the edge of collapse. This article takes a snapshot view on how we are doing and the final conclusion is that America, like an alcoholic must and will hit bottom.

Meaningful Political Reform is Impossible

In this, a mid-term election year, we hear a lot of talk of how the people must rise up and vote as one. Unfortunately, the gross, collective ignorance of this country is so great that elections, as an exercise as the collective and intelligent expression of the public will, are non-existent. And even if a community could spur a collective action on an issue, the electronic voting machines would cast doubt on the true outcome anyway.

Before a nation can peacefully change course, the people must understand how political change happens. Further, they must have an understanding of the key political players and what they stand for. Unfortunately, and according to an Annenburg survey that was just conducted, only 36% of all Americans can identify the three branches of government. How can one possibly rid a system of abuse when one does not understand how the system works? A full 25% of all Americans know how that Senators serve for six years. Tragically and only 20%of all Americans know how many U.S. senators there are. Additionally, only 40% of high school seniors know that Joe Biden is the Vice-President. The faces of Pelosi, Reed and McCain should be on every billboard and dartboard for what they have done to the country (e.g. NDAA, Obamacare). Instead, most Americans have scarcely heard of them.

STILL VOTING? LOL!

Even as in the open our public corruption has become, most will never hear of it because six corporations own over 95% of the media. Most American think that they have a free press when nothing could be further from the truth.

One would think that the First Amendment to the Constitution would protect the freedom of the press. There was a recent time when the United States was previously ranked 20th in the freedom of the press, but the U.S. has fallen 27 places to the 49th place. One of the reasons listed for the decline are the many arrests of journalist covering Occupy Wall Street protests. Certainly, the Occupy Wall Street arrests had a lot to do with the slippage. The US is now ranked lower then most western European countries including Finland, Norway, Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, UK, France, Spain, etc.

One of the many things the occupy movement has done is help focus more attention on the aggressive militarization of basic law enforcement in the United States.  And that’s been combined with police efforts to prevent both professional and amateur reporters from covering the story. These undeniable facts were in evidence in the recent unrest in Ferguson, MO.

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index 2011, the United States is tied with Romania for forty-ninth in civil liberties. Several countries such as Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and Norway are tied for first.

Amber Lyon

Former award-winning CNN journalist, Amber Lyon, who quit the network in order to maintain her journalistic integrity.

Amber Lyon, former CNN award winning journalist left the network because she was disgusted by the fact that the government paid hush money to CNN to not cover stories and also paid money to the compromised network to make up stories.

I can remember when in the 1990’s many were unhappy that the number of corporations which owned the lion’s share of the media had shrunk from 150 to 50 due to deregulation under President Bill Clinton. Again, in today’s America, only six corporations own 95% percent of our media. One cannot, with any degree of confidence, believe a word coming out of the mouth any newscaster or their network.

Can one imagine how far the freedom of the press ratings would have fallen if the murders of Andrew Breitbart and Michael Hastings were taken into account?

Americans Are Medicated and Unhealthy

In the period from 1968 to 2008, the suicide rate in America rose 308% for people aged 15 to 24. It is clear that our children do not want to live in the New World Order. One out of every ten teen girls in America engages in “self-harm”. Cutting and burning are the most common forms that this “self-harm” takes.

No less than 30 million Americans are on antidepressants. Americans account for about four percent of the world’s population, but we buy more than 50% of the pharmaceutical drugs and Americans take a stunning 80% of all prescription painkillers. According to several studies 70% of all Americans are on at least one prescription drug and 20% of all Americans are on at least five prescription drugs. Additionally 60 million Americans  are problem drinkers and are categorized as alcoholics. Let me restate the last morbid statistic, one in six Americans, are problem drinkers.

According to a presentation offered at the IFPE Congress in Vienna, Austria on April 18, 2009, on the results of World Health Organization’s World Mental Health Survey, 19% of studied Americans experienced a clinical anxiety disorder in the previous twelve-month period, which pushes the United States into a ranking of first place in this category. And no wonder, it is estimated that one out of every four girls will be sexually abused before they become adults. Suicide has now actually surpassed car accidents as the number one cause of “injury death”in the United States.

Collectively, our cancer rates are by far the highest in the world as are our autism rates (now one in 53 births). Alzheimer’s is soaring at record rates and the age of onset is getting younger and younger. According to the CIA 2013 Factbook, Americans only have the 42nd longest life span on the planet despite the exorbitant amount we spend on health care. And I haven’t even touched upon obesity rates, sleep deprivation, etc., but you get the idea,we are morbidly unhealthy and a miserable people.

Economic Recovery Is Not Possible Under Any Circumstance

There is a bit of good news. The national deficit is only $17 trillion dollars and it is growing by leaps and bounds. At least that’s the good news. The bad news is that our “unfunded liabilities” (e.g. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and now Obamacare) have reached a total of $240 trillion dollars. And the really bad news is that our country, through the bailouts, owe the bankers a whopping $1 quadrillion dollars for the Ponzi scheme we call the credit swap derivatives. Since the entire estimated value of the planet is merely $100 trillion dollars, please explain to me how we can pay off this debt? Because this is public debt and it exceeds the sum total of all of our collective holdings,the owners of the debt, effectively own you!

I would talk about IT compensation rates where the  United States ranks 14th in IT management compensation. I could also mention that Americans no longer live in the highest salary paying country in the world. In fact, the United States does not even crack the top ten list of the highest salary paying countries on the planet in which Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Japan, Norway, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom round out the top ten and pay their workers more than workers in the United States. In fact, the United States only ranks 20th in terms of overall gross pay!

Perhaps our children can collectively educate themselves to a higher economic level in terms of our professional expertise ceiling. Unfortunately, The Education Policy Institute assessed the affordability of higher education costs and found that the United States ranks 13th in higher education affordability. And to those who think your children can borrow their way to a degree, think again. Today’s U.S. college loan practices, which serve to underwrite much of the cost of a college education, are the most predatory in the world.

As of last year, bankruptcy cannot cancel out a student loan debt and delinquent college students can now go to jail for nonpayment. In fact, several federal agencies have even “swat teamed” many delinquent student loan defaulters. Nowhere else in the world can we find evidence of these types of predatory practices being used against college students as we do here in the United States.

Again, all economic data,in effect, is meaningless so long as we owe a $17 trillion dollar deficit, a $240 trillion dollar unfunded liability debt and a $1 quadrillion derivatives debt. We virtually no exported manufacturing left and with the free trade agreements, there is no possibility of re-instituting tariffs which sustained this country without an income tax until 1913. The American government only takes in $2 trillion dollars per year. Do the math, if put every dime that we collect in taxes toward the debt and spent the money on nothing else, it would take us 120 years to pay off the unfunded liabilities and we could never pay off the derivatives debt because the debt is expanding faster that $2 trillion dollars of debt. Of course, the government could increase taxes, but there reaches a point when it will not pay to go to work. The final solution would be debt repudiation and start over. However, let me remind you, the bankers control the government and its enforcement mechanisms and they will not give up this asset and this measure of control without a fight and, my friends, I am regrettably sure that is where this is headed.

The Most Dire American Statistic

In a human holocaust beyond belief, more than 56 million American babies have been massacred in this country since Roe v. Wade was handed down by the Supreme Court in 1973. Our abortion rate is roughly equal to the number of U.S. military deaths that have occurred in all of the wars that the United States has ever fought combined. May God have mercy on us.

Conclusion

The purge has already begun. Despite having only 4% of the world’s population, our prisons house 25% of the worlds prison population!

This article is only a snapshot of the dire circumstances America finds herself in. Like an alcoholic, America must and will hit bottom because we lack the collective awareness, resources, maturity and resolve to confront our issues head on. However, hitting bottom does not necessarily spell the end unless these are indeed the proverbial and Biblical “last days”.  Let me remind all Christians, that the Bible, in Matthew 24:36, clearly tells us that in regard to the Second Coming, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only”. Therefore, it is prudent to prepare for the reality that this evil that has been set loose upon the world is going to continue for awhile longer.

There is a cycle to everything and most of the people will reach a point where they cannot sustain themselves in the present system of contrived shortages and they may push back, provided depopulation strategies are not fully underway. In the very small chance that America will one day fight back against this tyranny, it would be prudent to teach our young the Constitution and what moral authority really means in order that the survivors have something meaningful upon which to rebuild.

Sometimes, knowing my history as I do, it is a curse because it is easy to see where this headed. One of my contemporaries once told me that our fathers lived in the best days of America. I agree and that generation, the WW II generation, could not have imagined how quickly this country would become so utterly destroyed in such a short time.

My best advice to all is to prepare on two fronts. Prepare to continue within the framework that now exists, the Matrix if you will. However it important that we simultaneously turn our attention to strategies which will increase the odds of survival. Therefore, adaptation strategies have become critically important.

Credit to common Sense

Iraqi Army Uses Russian Anti-Tank Guided Missile Systems Against IS for First Time

BAGHDAD, September 22 (RIA Novosti) – The Iraqi army have used the Russian anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) system Kornet for the first time, destroying five Islamic State (IS) armored vehicles in the central province of Diyala, Alsumaria TV channel reported on Monday.

“The Russian anti-tank system was first used by the Iraqi army … in the province of Diyala [50 kilometers east of the city of Baqubah], where five armored vehicles with gunmen were destroyed," an unnamed representative of the Iraqi security forces told the channel.

According to him, three squadrons of the Iraqi army have been trained to use the Russian anti-tank system.

"The Russian Kornet weapon has demonstrated very high precision in destroying targets," the Iraqi military man said.

According to the channel, the Russian ATGM system, Kornet was ordered by the Iraqi government to improve the efficiency of the army in the fight against extremist armed groups.

The IS, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) or Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has been fighting the Syrian government since 2012. In June 2014, it launched an offensive in Iraq seizing territories in both countries, proclaiming an Islamic caliphate over its conquered land. The jihadist group has killed thousands of Shiites, Christians, and Yazidis, and forced thousands of people to flee territories under their control.

Credit to RIA Novosti

US Dollar is the Last Stop Before Gold & Silver Spike

China And Iran Conduct Naval Drills Persian Gulf

Turkey accused of colluding with Isis

Mystery surrounds the surprise release of 49 Turkish diplomats and their families held captive for three months by Isis. The Turkish government is denying any deal with the hostage-takers, making it unclear why Isis, notorious for its cruelty and ruthlessness, should hand over its Turkish prisoners on Saturday without a quid pro quo.

Hailed in Ankara as a triumph for Turkey, the freeing of the diplomats seized when Mosul fell to Isis on 10 June raises fresh questions about the relationship between the Turkish government and Isis. The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the release is the result of a covert operation by Turkish intelligence that must remain a secret.

He added on Sunday that “there are things we cannot talk about. To run the state is not like running a grocery store. We have to protect our sensitive issues; if you don’t there would be a price to pay.” Turkey denies that a ransom was paid or promises made to Isis.

The freeing of the hostages comes at the same moment as 70,000 Syrian Kurds have fled across the border into Turkey to escape an Isis offensive against the enclave of Kobani, also known as Ayn al-Arab, which has seen the capture of many villages.

The assault on Kobani is energising Kurds throughout the region with 3,000 fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) based in Iraq’s Qandil mountains reported to be crossing from Iraq into Syria and heading for Kobani.

credit to the independent