The Future of Banking?

Posted on August 30, 2016 by marcia

Major Bank Official: Banks Are “Preparing for an Economic Nuclear Winter”

Posted by clnAdrian August 30, 2016

nuclear winter-compressed

After years of giveaways to megabanks, marketed to the taxpayers as ‘quantitative easing,’ the crutches shoved under the banker-controlled global stock trade are about to snap. Bankers now say they are preparing for the collapse.

In June of 2015, former Congressman Ron Paul predicted that these crutches would fail, and the financial bubbles created by them would send the stock market into a free-fall.

The consequences will not be minor. Surprises will be many, since we are in uncertain waters and the world has never faced the gross misallocation of capital that exists today. The process is self-limiting. It will come to an end, and it’s not going to be far into the future.

Now, as chaos in the EU and weak corporate earnings create a tornado of uncertainty, banks are preparing for the worst.

According to CNBC quoting a major lender, banks are “preparing for an economic nuclear winter situation.”

The chaos in the market has major bank officials running for the hills. According to CNBC, European banks, in particular, have had a very tough six months as the shock and volatility around Brexit sent banking stocks south. Major European banks like Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse saw their shares in free-fall after the referendum’s results were announced. In the U.K., RBS was the worst-hit, with its shares plunging by more than 30 percent since June 24.

On Sunday, a source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, due to the fact that revealing this information can get bankers killed, a source from a major investment bank told CNBC “that financial services firms have put together a strategy in place that takes into account the worst-case scenario that could happen by the end of this year.”

“This could mean triggering Article 50, referendum in other European nations leading to a break-up of the euro or sterling hitting below $1.20 or lower. The banks are ready for anything now,” the source said.

This grim warning comes after the Royal Bank of Scotland has warned its investors of a “cataclysmic year.” In an eerily ominous note to its clients early this year, the megabank predicted another worse case scenario.

Sell everything except high quality bonds. This is about return of capital, not return on capital. In a crowded hall, exit doors are small.

In the note, RBS’s credit chief Andrew Roberts told investors how Quantitative Easing has failed and was expected to fail.

We have been told for 7 years now since the credit crunch, under QE, to borrow money and invest it in one of 3 things: 1) EM 2) credit 3) global equities. This is a big picture, multi-year bet that has been taken, which has worked fine, and stopped working 10 months ago, (this is NOT NEW).

As the Guardian’s Larry Elliott points out:

Markets have been supported for some time by low-interest rates, stimulus measures from central banks including quantitative easing, and hopes of economic recovery. But with the Federal Reserve raising rates and the Bank of England expected to follow suit, that prop is being removed.

Those who pay attention to the effects of central bankers looting their respective countries have long pointed out the mathematical certainty that is an economic collapse.

The collapse of global markets is inevitable as it is a natural correction to the wholesale fleecing of the citizens through the unscrupulous actions of central banks.

Ron Paul sums up the situation perfectly:

The credit and new money, when created by a central bank, is delivered to the market in a political fashion for which the one percent receive special benefits. It allows the pyramiding of debt to fractional reserve banking, which compounds the long-term problems.

It may be fun while it lasts, but it always ends with a crash.

from: http://consciouslifenews.com/major-bank-official-banks-preparing-economic-nuclear-winter/11125063/

What’s A Crime Now?

Posted on August 27, 2016 by marcia

You’re Likely Committing a Crime Right Now in “The Land of the Free”

TOPICS:Expats Freedom Legal Mark Nestmann Police

August 26, 2016

crime

By Mark Nestmann, The Nestmann Group

Do you own a dog? You could face six months in federal prison if you walk it on federal lands and your leash is longer than six feet.

Do you have a bank account? If you deposit or withdraw more than $10,000 in cash over multiple transactions, you could be imprisoned for up to five years. Plus, they could take every penny in the account, under the theory it “facilitated” your crime.

Do you have foreign investments? Neglect to tell Uncle Sam about them, and the penalties will be brutal. Forget to file just one form? You could face a $10,000 penalty per account per year.

There’s no requirement that you know any of these crimes exist for you to be found guilty of violating them. After all, “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.”

Given this, you might think Uncle Sam would make it easy to understand exactly what’s legal and what’s not. Think again.

In 1790, the first set of federal criminal laws contained a grand total of 20 crimes. Since then, the number of federal crimes listed has bloated beyond recognition. No one knows how many federal crimes exist, although a 1998 study from the American Bar Association concluded the total was likely “much higher” than 3,000.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Federal agencies have the power to “make” laws called “Administrative Laws” out of thin air. Violate one of these, you will end up in a cell. Indeed, the number of federal regulations carrying criminal penalties may be as high as 300,000.

And don’t forget about state and local laws. In Arizona, you face 25 years imprisonment for cutting down a cactus. In Mississippi, it is illegal for a male to be sexually aroused in a public place. In Pennsylvania, a woman was arrested for swearing at a clogged toilet.

It’s no wonder the US has the world’s largest prison population. More people rot in local, county, state, and federal prisons in the US than in all other developed countries combined. Over 2.2 million Americans currently live in some type of jail.Given these facts, you could be forgiven for thinking that Congress might put the brakes on penning new federal criminal law. Unfortunately, that’s not happening. Indeed, the pace of federal “criminalization” is accelerating. A 2008 study concluded that since the start of 2000, Congress created at least 452 new crimes. That’s more than one a week.

Since then, there has been no indication this trend will slow down, in fact the opposite is the case. For instance, last year, I learned US persons with certain international investments are now required to report them to the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). Until 2014, you needed to file this form only if the BEA “invited” you to do so. But in November 2014, the BEA issued final regulations making it mandatory to file this form – and imposing civil and criminal penalties if you don’t.

When was the last time you received an official notification from the BEA inviting you to file this form? I’ve never received one – I only learned about this requirement when my accountant warned me about it.

Anyone can inadvertently run afoul of America’s far-reaching network of criminal laws. Depositing or withdrawing lawfully-earned funds from your own bank account is hardly what most people would consider a criminal offense. Neither is walking a dog with a six-and-a-half-foot leash.

Fortunately, America is nearly unique in criminalizing so many offenses. The world prison population rate, based on United Nations estimates, is 144 per 100,000. By comparison, it’s 698 per 100,000 in the US – nearly five times as high. A statistic like this must make us all ask, why? And beyond that, why do we stick around? A second passport, or even expatriation will provide some relief from the American cancer of criminalization.

If you have any interest in setting up a second home overseas, don’t wait until some inadvertent slipup results in an arrest and possible felony conviction. Once you have a criminal record, you’ll find it much more difficult to acquire legal residence anywhere else.

There couldn’t be a better time than now to begin, while the coast is clear.

from: http://www.activistpost.com/2016/08/youre-likely-committing-crime-right-now.html

Powerful Women Pre-Columbian

Posted on August 9, 2016 by marcia

Ancient remains discovered at ‘America’s first city’ reveal women held high-power positions

Cahokia is an ancient Native American city just outside modern St. Louis
Earlier analyses suggested the city ran under ‘male dominated hierarchy’
It was thought that remains in a ‘beaded burial’ were high status men
But new analysis reveals there were women and even a child in the burial

By Cheyenne Macdonald For Dailymail.com

Published: 15:44 EST, 8 August 2016 | Updated: 19:18 EST, 8 August 2016

Almost 50 years ago, archaeologists excavating an ancient city just outside of St. Louis discovered a mass burial site with an unusual central feature – two bodies arranged atop a bed of beads, with several other bodies encircling them.

It was once thought that the elaborate ‘beaded burial’ structure at Cahokia was built as a monument to male power – but now, researchers suggest this is not the case.

A new analysis of the remains reveals that one of these central bodies is actually female, and researchers say the discovery of similar male-female pairs and the remains of a child indicates that women played an important role in society.

It was once thought that the elaborate ‘beaded burial’ structure at Cahokia was built as a monument to male power – but now, researchers suggest this is not the case. In a new study, they discovered female remains in this central structure. The ancient city is pictured above

WHAT THEY FOUND

While earlier studies reported that there had been six bodies at the beaded burial, the researchers found there were actually 12, with one of the central figures being a woman.

According to physical anthropologist Kristin Hedman, the discovery of females in this structure was ‘unexpected.’

And, they found other similar pairs on top of and near the beaded area, with some laid out as fully articulated bodies, and others among bundles of bones gathered for burial.

Along with this, the team found the remains of a child.

In the new study, published to the journal American Antiquity, researchers with the Illinois State Archaeological Survey at the University of Illinois and colleagues found that there are both male and female remains buried at the site of the Native American city, Cahokia.

Cahokia is said to be North America’s first city, and is the largest pre-Columbian settlement north of Mexico.

Now known as ‘Mound 72,’ the massive burial site discovered by archaeologist Melvin Fowler in 1967 contains 270 bodies, with five mass graves each containing at least 20 bodies, and some exceeding 50.

Later analysis revealed that the burials occurred between the years 1000 and 1200 during the rise and peak of Cahokia.

Some of the bodies were laid on cedar litters, suggesting these individuals were of high-status in their lives.

‘Mound 72 burials are some of the most significant burials ever excavated in North America from this time period,’ said ISAS director Thomas Emerson.

‘Fowler’s and others’ interpretation of these mounds became the model that everybody across the east was looking at in terms of understanding status and gender roles and symbolism among Native American groups in this time.’

It was thought that the beaded burial involved two high-status males, with their servants surrounding.

And, the beads were thought to be the remains of a cape or blanket in the shape of a bird, which is associated with warriors and supernatural beings in some Native American traditions.

While earlier studies reported that there had been six bodies at the beaded burial, the researchers found there were actually 12, with one of the central figures being a woman. Along with this, the team found the remains of a child

Almost 50 years ago, archaeologists excavating the pre-Columbian Native American city, Cahokia discovered a mass burial site with an unusual central feature. The city sits just outside of what is now St. Louis

THE BEADED BURIAL

The central feature of Mound 72 is a ‘beaded burial.’

In this structure, two bodies are arranged atop a bed of beads, with several other bodies encircling them.

It was thought that the beaded burial involved two high-status males, with their servants surrounding.

And, the beads were thought to be the remains of a cape or blanket in the shape of a bird, which is associated with warriors and supernatural beings in some Native American traditions.

According to the new study, however, one of these central bodies is actually female.

‘One of the things that promoted the concept of the male warrior mythology was the bird image,’ Emerson said.

Because of this, Cahokia was thought to be a ‘male-dominated hierarchy,’ the researcher explained.

In the new study, the researchers analyzed early maps, notes, reports, and skeletal remains.

While earlier studies reported that there had been six bodies at the beaded burial, the researchers found there were actually 12, with one of the central figures being a woman.

According to physical anthropologist Kristin Hedman, the discovery of females in this structure was ‘unexpected.’

And, they found other similar pairs on top of and near the beaded area, with some laid out as fully articulated bodies, and others among bundles of bones gathered for burial.

Along with this, the team found the remains of a child.

According to the researchers, the materials often symbolized life renewal, fertility, and agriculture. Artifacts discovered at the ancient site are pictured above

‘The fact that these high-status burials included women changes the meaning of the beaded burial feature,’ Emerson said.

‘Now, we realize, we don’t have a system in which males are these dominant figures and females are playing bit parts.

‘And so, what we have at Cahokia is very much a nobility. It’s not a male nobility. It’s males and females, and their relationships are very important.’

The researcher explains that these findings are more in line with other materials from Cahokia than the scenarios presented by earlier studies.

‘For me, having dug temples at Cahokia and analyzed a lot of that material, the symbolism is all about life renewal, fertility, agriculture,’ Emerson said.

‘Most of the stone figurines found there are female. The symbols showing up on the pots have to do with water and the underworld. And so now Mound 72 fits into a more consistent story with what we know about the rest of the symbolism and religion at Cahokia.’

By focusing on warrior symbolism, Emerson explains that previous studies have misinterpreted the culture of Cahokia, and this time period.

‘When the Spanish and the French came into the southeast as early as the 1500s, they identified these kinds of societies in which both males and females have rank,’ says Emerson.

‘Really, the division here is not gender; it’s class.’

‘People who saw the warrior symbolism in the beaded burial were actually looking at societies hundreds of years later in the southeast, where warrior symbolism dominated, and projecting it back to Cahokia and saying: ‘well, that’s what this must be. And we’re saying: ‘No, it’s not.’’

The End of Cash?

Posted on August 8, 2016 by marcia

The other day, my bank sent me a new ‘contactless’ debit card. Immediately, I cut it up with a pair of scissors.

Banks and credit card issuers might like to try to tell us that the future lies in the ‘cashless society’, in which we will make even the smallest purchases such as a cup of coffee or a daily newspaper by card, but I don’t want anything to do with it.

I am not a Luddite — I just like and trust cash.

If cash were to disappear we would find us at the mercy of the banks and their infernal transaction fee

If I am buying a week’s grocery shopping, or I am buying an airline ticket over the internet, true, I am quite happy to pay using my debit card, because it is by far the most efficient way of making the transaction.

But when I hear about banks and payment companies such as Visa and MasterCard doing their best to eliminate cash from our lives, I am deeply cynical about their motives.

I fear they are trying to engineer a future world where we can never buy or sell anything without using their services.

Contactless cards are the most recent ‘innovation’ as part of this insidious revolution.

They contain a tiny radio receiver which — when waved within a couple of inches of a ticket machine or terminal at a shop checkout — can be used to make a payment instead of the buyer having to tap in a PIN number.

It isn’t hard to imagine the power that the banks would wield if we lost the option of paying for items in cash and of keeping our savings in a hidey-hole at home.

They would use it as an excuse to ditch free banking in an instant. All kinds of charges would spring up for the simple reason it would be impossible for anyone to avoid them.

Of course, banking isn’t really free, even now. While most current account holders don’t pay a fee whenever they buy something with a debit card, retailers are paying for the service. They must pay to hire the terminals on which payments are made — and a percentage charge on the transaction.

In the case of a debit card, this charge is typically 8p per £100 spent by customers. For credit cards, the fee rises tenfold to 80p per £100. And for premium/reward cards, it doubles again, to £1.60 for every £100 spent.

Ultimately, though, it is we who pay for this — as well as all the air miles and other ‘goodies’ which are offered as accessories for the privilege of having such cards, because retailers inevitably pass the cost on to us in higher prices.

What’s more, banks and payment companies have been making ever-increasing sums from card payments.

In 2014, the Payments Council —the trade body for card-issuers, since renamed Payments UK — boasted that the number of card payments had overtaken that of cash payments for the first time.

As a country, we now make 48 per cent of our purchases with cash and the other 52 per cent by card or some other cashless method.

In some cases, we no longer have an option to pay in cash. For example, fast-food chain Tossed recently announced that it was phasing out the option of cash payments from its outlets altogether, forcing customers to pay by card.

Were cash to disappear, it isn’t hard to see what would happen to these transaction fees — they would soar, as banks exploited their monopoly.

While most of us don’t directly pay fees for using our debit cards in Britain, there are punitive charges for using them abroad.

I recently realised how much cheaper it would be for me to buy everything with cash when I am on holiday abroad.

Every time I use my debit card abroad, my bank, the Halifax, charges a flat rate ‘non-sterling purchase’ of £1.50 plus a ‘non-sterling transfer fee’ of 2.75 per cent. It soon mounts up, especially if you make a lot of small purchases.

A woman pays in a butcher’s shop with a contactless credit card

But the charges we pay now are nothing compared with what we will have to pay if the banks ever get their way and cash is abolished.

When, last Thursday, the Bank of England cut its base rate to 0.25 per cent — the lowest level ever — this raised the spectre of negative interest rates. Ten days ago, NatWest and the Royal Bank of Scotland — part of the same, largely publicly owned banking group — wrote to business customers warning them that there might soon come a time when they would have to start levying interest on deposits.

That, of course, is the opposite of what we are used to.

For years, we have earned interest on money we deposit in a bank account, just as we expect to pay interest when we borrow it.

The rate of interest on our savings might not always be exciting — current accounts pay virtually nothing, which is another way in which banks make money out of us.

But if we had to pay interest on our savings, it would mean that if we left our nest eggs untouched, they would be whittled away year by year. Whereas if we left them under the mattress, they would have retained their value!

So far, NatWest and the RBS have said they have no plans to charge negative interest on individuals’ accounts. At the moment, they wouldn’t dare, because they fear the inevitable consumer backlash.

Undoubtedly, huge numbers of us would walk into branches and withdraw our savings in protest — leading to a bank run just like the one which brought Northern Rock to its knees in 2007.

I know I am not the only consumer or saver to have reached this conclusion. While the banks and payment companies continue to push for the cashless society, the British population is putting up fierce resistance.

For, it can be no coincidence that the closer we get to negative interest rates, people are increasingly hoarding more money.

Pokemon Gotcha!

Posted on July 30, 2016 by marcia

Pokémon Go, the CIA, “Totalitarianism” and the Future of Surveillance

July 29, 2016

By Steven MacMillan

If anyone doubted that a percentage of the global population are akin to zombies, the incidents following the release of Pokémon Go have surely convinced you. Despite the game only being released in early July, we have already seen a man driving into a tree and a women getting locked in a graveyard whilst chasing these furry little creatures.

Pokémon describes the game on their website in the following way:

Travel between the real world and the virtual world of Pokémon with Pokémon GO for iPhone and Android devices. With Pokémon GO, you’ll discover Pokémon in a whole new world—your own! Pokémon GO is built on Niantic’s Real World Gaming Platform and will use real locations to encourage players to search far and wide in the real world to discover Pokémon… In Pokémon GO, the real world will be the setting!

Pokémon Go, Google, the State Department, the CIA and the DoD

The company behind Pokémon Go is a San Francisco software developer called Niantic, Inc, which was formed in 2010 as an internal startup at Google. The founder and current CEO of Niantic is John Hanke, a man who has connections both to the State Department and the CIA.

Before moving to San Francisco to study at the University of California, Hanke previously worked for the US State Department in Myanmar. Hanke also founded Keyhole, Inc in 2001, a company which specialized in geospatial data visualization applications. Google acquired the company in 2004, with many of the applications developed by Keyhole being instrumental in Google Maps and Earth. In 2003, the CIA’s venture-capitalist firm, In-Q-Tel, invested in Keyhole, with the CIA’s own website proudly detailing this investment:

The CIA-assisted technology probably most familiar to you is one many of us use on a regular basis: Google Earth. In February 2003, the CIA-funded venture-capitalist firm In-Q-Tel made a strategic investment in Keyhole, Inc., a pioneer of interactive 3-D earth visualization and creator of the groundbreaking rich-mapping EarthViewer 3D system. CIA worked closely with other Intelligence Community organizations to tailor Keyhole’s systems to meet their needs. The finished product transformed the way intelligence officers interacted with geographic information and earth imagery.

One of the other intelligence organizations the CIA worked alongside was the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), which is partly under the control of the US Department of Defense (DoD).

So we have a somewhat enigmatic former State Department employee with connections to the CIA and the DoD, being the CEO of a company that created what seems to be a silly, harmless game. What’s going on?

Selling and Sharing Your Data

Like so many new technologies in our digital age, Pokémon Go is constantly gathering information on the user and then openly admitting that they will share this data with anyone who wants it.

As James Corbett pointed out in his article titled: “The CIA’s ‘Pokémon Go’ App is Doing What the Patriot Act Can’t,” the privacy policy of the app states that Niantic will share all the information they gather (which is a lot) with the state and private organizations:

We cooperate with government and law enforcement officials or private parties to enforce and comply with the law. We may disclose any information about you (or your authorized child) that is in our possession or control to government or law enforcement officials or private parties as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate.

Corbett also details how the game requires the user to give excessive access to Niantic/CIA/NGA/DoD (including access to the users’ Google account and camera).

Oliver Stone on PG: “Totalitarianism” and a “New Level of Invasion”

Speaking at this year’s Comic-Con, Oliver Stone – the award winning filmmaker and director of the new film on Edward Snowden – had some very insightful views on the new craze and the growing business of data-mining. As Vulture magazine reported in a recent article, Stone denounced the game as a “new level of invasion” and a new form of “totalitarianism:”

I’m hearing about it too; it’s a new level of invasion. Once the government had been hounded by Snowden, of course the corporations went into encryption, because they had to for survival, right? But the search for profits is enormous. Nobody has ever seen, in the history of the world, something like Google – ever! It’s the fastest-growing business ever, and they have invested huge amounts of money into what surveillance is; which is data-mining.

Stone continues:

They’re data-mining every person in this room for information as to what you’re buying, what it is you like, and above all, your behavior. Pokémon Go kicks into that. It’s everywhere. It’s what some people call surveillance capitalism; it’s the newest stage. You’ll see a new form of, frankly, a robot society, where they will know how you want to behave and they will make the mockup that matches how you behave and feed you. It’s what they call totalitarianism.

Predicting Human Behavior

It is interesting that Stone doesn’t just warn about the commercial aspect of data-mining, but the fact that the more data governments and private corporations collect on the citizens of the world, the easier it becomes to predict their behavior. It is not just Stone that is warning about this reality, however. At the start of last year, the UK governments own surveillance commissioner, Tony Porter, revealed how data obtained from CCTV cameras can be used to “predict behavior.”

As we progress through the 21st century and more advanced algorithmic systems are developed to process the tsunami of data, intelligence agencies and governments will increasingly be able to predict (and manipulate) the behavior of their populations and the populations of foreign countries. We are already far along this path, will the trajectory for the future heading straight towards levels of surveillance far beyond even what George Orwell envisaged; with the fight for digital privacy being a major battleground in this century for those who value freedom.

Pokémon Go looks more like a Trojan horse of the CIA and the wider intelligence-security-data-mining-Big-Brother complex, than just a silly, innocent game. With all these connections to the State Department, the CIA and the DoD, no wonder some countries are reportedly considering banning the game.

Steven MacMillan is an independent writer, researcher, geopolitical analyst and editor of The Analyst Report, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

from: http://www.activistpost.com/2016/07/pokemon-go-cia-totalitarianism-future-surveillance.html

Native Americans in Politics

Posted on July 28, 2016 by marcia

A Political Turning Point for Native Americans

Who will be Indian Country’s Obama? Look to the states. Her name will be Paulette, Peggy, or Denise.

Mark Trahant posted Jul 26, 2016

This is the first of a two-part series on this political turning point for Native Americans. Read Part 2 here.

Joe Garry was president of the National Congress of American Indians in an era when tribal rights were under assault from Congress. House Concurrent Resolution 108, passed in August 1953, declared that the federal government should “terminate” its responsibilities toward Native Americans, essentially breaking promises made through solemn treaties.

The threat was real. In a period of 30 years, more than a hundred tribes were disbanded and the tribal governments dissolved. The result was huge losses of land and natural resources in Oregon, Utah, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Texas.

The strongest weapon in this battle is the power to vote.

Garry’s plan to counter that threat included the addition of more Native American voices to the country’s conversations. The strongest weapon in this battle is the power to vote, Garry said. So I’ll begin the story of Native America’s growing political voice in Idaho, where Garry was the chairman of the Coeur d’Alene tribe. He ran for the Idaho House of Representatives and was elected in 1957. Later, he won a seat in the the Idaho Senate, and in 1960 sought the Democratic Party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate.

Idaho is a surprising birthplace for Joe Garry’s legacy. Not many Native Americans live in Idaho, where they comprise roughly 1 percent of the population. Garry’s successes showed that someone from a tribal community could be a leader for all of the citizens in a state.

: Joe Garry

In 1975, Garry’s niece Jeanne Givens became the first Native woman elected to the Idaho House of Representatives. Like her uncle, she challenged the status quo with a bid for Congress in 1988. Givens lost, but four years ago another Coeur d’Alene tribal member, Paulette Jordan, ran for the Idaho House seat. She lost that attempt but won in 2014, illustrating what may be the most important lesson in politics: You have to run to win—sometimes more than once. Jordan describes Givens as a mentor who has taught her much about politics. Both have earned the legacy of Joe Garry.

Larry Echo Hawk won a seat in the Idaho Legislature in 1992. After serving two terms he ran for and won election as the Bannock County prosecuting attorney—another first. Then, in 1990 he was elected attorney general of Idaho and became one of the few Native Americans to ever win a statewide office. Four years later he ran for governor, but he lost.

When a state like Idaho has a history of electing Native Americans to public office, you have to wonder, “Where else?” It has almost been a story of success-by-stealth.

There is a win in Arizona, another in Kansas. And when you add them up, there are at least 73 American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians serving in 19 state legislatures.

When a state like Idaho has a history of electing Native Americans to public office, you have to wonder, “Where else?”

Why hasn’t the scope of this story been told before? Because each race is local; no one has ever collected all of the data that make a complete picture. So at the start of the election season I set out to build a complete list of Native Americans running for state and federal office. My list is always changing, but there are seven candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, one for the U.S. Senate, and some 80 state legislative candidates. (What I really like is that it’s crowdsourced: Every time I publish the latest candidate charts at TrahantReports.com, readers let me know who I have missed.)

I’d love to proclaim this to be a record year, but there’s nothing to measure against. We don’t know how many Native Americans have taken the plunge in previous election cycles. We do know, however, who has won.

One source for that information is membership in the National Caucus of Native American State Legislators. This is an association of people already elected, so it tells us more about what happened in 2014 than in 2016. Still, it’s important for three reasons: First, if you look at the body of work of these state senators and representatives, you’ll find that they advocate for better services, more funding, and improving relationships between tribal nations and state governments. Second, there is a mechanism to share information with each other about what works (and what does not). And third, this association is the talent pool for federal posts, from Congress to the White House.

Remember, it was just 1996 when Barack Obama was elected to the Illinois Senate.

To see the growing influence of Native Americans elected to office we need only to look at Montana.

Right now, the big story there is Denise Juneau, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, who is running for the U.S. House of Representatives. She’s a member of the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes and grew up in the Blackfeet Nation in Browning, Montana. She has already won two statewide contests, so she knows what it takes to win Montana’s only U.S. House seat. If successful, she (along with Arizona congressional candidate Victoria Steele) would be the first American Indian woman in Congress.

To see the growing influence of Native Americans elected to office we need only to look at Montana.

Yet the Montana story is richer than just Juneau. Some 20 years ago, Montana was much like any other state with a significant Native American population with only one or two Native Americans serving in the state Legislature. But in 1997, a third Native American candidate won. And again in 2003. By 2007, Native Americans in Montana occupied 10 seats in the state Legislature—6.6 percent of that body. Montana’s population is 7.4 percent Native American.

Today there are three Native Americans in the Montana Senate and five in the Montana House of Representatives, some 5.3 percent of the state Legislature. This is the highest percentage of Native American representation in the country.

Let’s put the Montana percentages in national terms: If Congress were 5.3 percent Native American, that would be five U.S. Senators and 21 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. Even if you adjust for population, the number of Native American members of Congress would have to more than double to equal the representation found in Montana.

: YES! Infographic by Tracy Loeffelholz Dunn.

After the 2016 election, Montana’s state-level Native representation is likely to grow. There are 11 Native American candidates on Montana’s ballot this year, including Juneau.

Montana’s Native American legislators are in office to raise overlooked issues that are important to their constituents. According to the Montana Budget and Policy Center, this past session produced a number of innovative laws, including Medicaid expansion (a financial boost to the Indian health system) and laws that will improve funding for tribal colleges, support for tribal languages, and streamline Indian business ventures. The success rate of Native American legislators to push through policy changes was less than perfect, but their voices were heard. It’s likely that during the next session many of the ideas that failed to pass will be back on the agenda.

Native voters and elected officials are only at the beginning of a demographic trend.

At nearly 1 percent nationwide, the Native American rate of representation in state legislatures still trails that of the nation’s overall population of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. But that’s more than half of the 1.7 percent that make up the Native American population in the United States. Compare that to Congress, where only two elected Native Americans equal only 0.33 percent. Compare that to the federal judiciary, where only one Native American judge equals a representation of about 0.1 percent.

Then consider the young and growing Native American population. Native voters and elected officials are only at the beginning of a demographic trend. The American Indian and Alaska Native population is younger and growing faster than the general population. About one-third of all Native Americans are under the age of 18 (compared to 24 percent for the total population), and the median age for Native Americans is 26 (compared to 37 for the nation).

While it’s overdue for America’s first citizens to have a voice in how governments are run and how the country’s future is shaped, it is happening now. Just imagine what it could mean for climate change policy decisions, for example, to hear from people who think about the future in terms of a 10,000-year history. Imagine also the healing message for a new generation of Native Americans—and for the country as a whole—to finally see in positions of power the people who suffered loss of both lands and culture and genocide.

: YES! Infographic by Tracy Loeffelholz Dunn.

This is a story that has been unfolding slowly, chapter by chapter. It started even before Joe Garry, when 19th century tribal treaty negotiators demanded a seat in Congress (a promise never kept). It’s a legacy that is infused with presidential politics, especially when candidates like Jesse Jackson, Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton campaign in tribal communities. The election of Obama elevated the possible. He kept his promises to include tribal nations in his government and in his actions. His rise from community organizer representing poor Black communities illuminated a path to meaningful politics.

This is a story that’s been unfolding slowly, chapter by chapter.

It’s also a progressive legacy, of which Minnesota Rep. Peggy Flanagan of the White Earth Ojibwe tribe is an excellent example. Flanagan told The Circle when she was elected, “I have been clear that for myself personally as an Ojibwe woman and mother—but also what I’ve heard from my constituents—is that Minnesotans believe in protecting our land and water. That’s why people live here in the first place. Indian or non-Indian, we live in a really beautiful state, and to throw it all away for short-term financial gain is really troubling to me.”

It’s hard to look across the country and not be optimistic about the quality, and the growing quantity, of Native American political voices. We know the story won’t end here because history tells us that state legislatures are the route that leads the next generation of leaders into Congress—and one day the White House.

So if you want to know who will be Indian Country’s Barack Obama, look to the states. Her name will be Paulette Jordan, Peggy Flanagan, or Denise Juneau.

And whoever she is, she will represent Joe Garry’s legacy.

from: http://www.yesmagazine.org/people-power/a-political-turning-point-for-native-americans-20160726

What’s Going On Underground?

Posted on July 25, 2016 by marcia

Deep Underground Military Bases? California Hit By Mysterious Clockwork “Booms” Daily For Years

by Tyler Durden

Submitted by Piper McGowan via The Daily Sheeple,

For years now, residents of Sonora, California have been hearing a window-shaking loud and so far officially unexplained BOOM! that always happens between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. daily.

Inquisitr reports that the explanation floating around Sonora from a local geologist/teacher is that an Army Depot in Hawthorne, Nevada, all the way across the state and behind a mountain range which disposes of old munitions like bombs, might be what residents have been hearing.

But do they have so many old bombs to dispose of that they do it daily every single day even on weekends and holidays without fail for years? Why would Sonora, California of all locations near Hawthorne be the seemingly most affected city of all?

Besides, even people who work at the depot aren’t hearing the booms regularly (via ABC News)

Ken Thomas, a contracting officer for the Hawthorne Army Depot, told ABC News today that they do detonate munitions regularly at the depot when the munitions are past their shelf-life, but he is not convinced that it can be heard in Sonora.

“It doesn’t feel right that what we’re doing here would be heard 200 miles away when there’s a mountain range in between us,” Thomas said. “My office is 27 miles from where they detonate the old munitions, I only hear it here maybe one time a month, and just barely and it’s like ‘Was that a boom?’”

On top of that, not only are they clockwork, but these have been described as deep, low booms which can almost be felt by the people who live there. In fact, a friend who lives near Sonora said that sometimes they can actually see their windows warp during the booms.

So what is it? Lots of conspiracies are, of course, floating around including aliens (as per the usual).

But one in particular sounds a lot more plausible than an old weapons depot that’s a three-hour drive from Sonora: DUMBs.

Deep underground military bases.

We all know there’s an extensive network of them which has been significantly expanded since 9/11 and the creation of Homeland Security…

…and we’re all just supposed to put our fingers in our ears and go “la la la” and pretend like they don’t exist.

The tunneling project is a joint venture involving the National Security Agency, CIA, FBI, MiB, Homeland Security & a few other groups that are buried in the Congressional Intelligence Committees with some weird acronyms no one really understands. Much of the info on this comes from private citizens in the county, public officials, as well as Coast to Coast with George Noory & Art Bell. These shows have given incredibly good information on the topic for the last several months, beginning in late 2003…

According to the information available, there are several reasons for the project:

1) Homeland Security needs an system of rapid deployment in the South, free of traffic;

2) certain gov’t agencies want an easy connection route with other gov’t installations in the South;

3) there is a move on in the intelligence community to begin more efficient use of the underground rail system already in place at Lockheed in Marietta;

4) Paulding is a central location for the complete project that will eventually connect installations in Anniston, AL; Macon, GA; Lockheed in Marietta; Lookout Mtn, TN; Greenville-Spartanburg, SC; & Raleigh-Durham, NC;

5) the Yorkville area of Paulding has been designated as the prime location for these hubs to come together because of geological preference;

6) the addition of new Walmart facilities in NW GA give spur hubs & depots easy access to large areas that can be partitioned off for moving of very large equipment & large numbers of people in case of national emergency.

(source)

Kinda like the CIA kept pretending Area 51 didn’t exist for decades until it was finally, quietly admitted it in 2013.

from: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-24/deep-underground-military-bases-california-hit-mysterious-clockwork-booms-daily-year

Who’s Paying Your Politician?

Posted on July 25, 2016 by marcia

Tired of Our Bought-and-Paid-For Congress? This 18-Year-Old Created an App That Exposes Sellout Politicians

26th July 2016

By Carolanne Wright

Contributing writer for Wake Up World

“In the last 5 years, the 200 most politically active companies in the U.S. spent $5.8 billion influencing our government with lobbying and campaign contributions. Those same companies got $4.4 trillion in taxpayer support — earning a return of 750 times their investment.” ~Greenhouse

In 2010 the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that has forever changed the political landscape of the United States. The decision opened the floodgates for corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money on political activities. The result of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has been a deluge of cash lavished on super PACs, which are just one very small step away from the candidates they support. The ruling has also established legal protections for corporations, where political spending falls into the realm of “dark money” and never needs to be publicly disclosed. As discouraging as this can be for those who value truth and transparency, the entire situation is about to get a major overhaul by way of an app that exposes corrupt politicians.

Welcome to the oligarchy of the United States

When a small group of people have control over an entire country, organization or institution, we call it an oligarchy. Here in the United States, we’ve crossed the line into this territory years ago and have seemingly turned our backs on the republic that was established when the country was founded. And yet, up until 2010, this creeping movement towards oligarchy wasn’t as obvious as it is today. It’s almost as if those in power have pulled out all the stops and are unconcerned about public opinion because, after all, the momentum is so strong, who are we to stop it?

“This place is just so inundated with corruption – it’s steeped in corruption like a teabag”, said Florida Representative Alan Grayson of Washington DC. “There was a Roman emperor – Caligula – who appointed his horse to the senate. At this point, the system has gotten so bad that if the Koch brothers appointed their horse to the Senate, it wouldn’t even make a difference. That’s where we are.” [source]

The ruling behind Citizens United brought the game to a whole new level, where corporations, corruption and money go hand in hand with members of Congress. A perfect example is the recent vote by the Senate to pass the DARK Act, against strong public outcry — legislation that is in the best interest of the biotech industry, but not the people of this country.

We have to face the fact that our politicians are merely puppets, bending to the highest corporate bidder. We also have a choice, either sit back and reap the consequences of such a government or take action to reform our political contribution laws. When choosing the latter, a powerful new tool has come into play that makes it almost effortless to gather information about which industries are financially supporting a politician.

Always follow the money

With so much corporate money saturating U.S. politics, it can seem an impossible task to try and keep track of which lobbyists are funded by whom. But now, thanks to 18-year-old Nick Rubin, we can clearly see which politicians have sold out. “As you can imagine, reading about how your member of Congress voted in a recent health bill becomes all the more enlightening if you know how much money the health industry showered him in at the last election,” points out Tim Mak of Vice.

Rubin created Greenhouse, a browser plug-in that aims “to shine light on a social and industrial disease of today: the undue influence of money in our Congress.” The app runs under the motto “Some are red. Some are blue. All are Green.” He chose the name Greenhouse due to the color of money in the U.S. and because there are two houses of Congress. It also indicates transparency — a greenhouse is clear and created to help things flourish.

The free plug-in runs on Chrome, Firefox and Safari and, once installed, highlights the name of any member of Congress on any website. When you hover over those names, a small box appears which lists total contribution information and industry breakdown from the current election cycle for that particular politician. Click on the popup to get more detailed information from OpenSecrets. For Safari only, Greenhouse also installs a dollar sign button in the toolbar. Press the button to type a name or scroll down to find any member of Congress. Hovering over the name will open a popup with contribution information.

Rubin has been interested in politics since the seventh grade while learning about corporate personhood. As he got older, he recognized there was a real need to have the sources of income for members of Congress in a simple and easily accessible format. More recently, he’s been teaching himself to code and felt something like Greenhouse would be a perfect solution, essentially putting the data at peoples fingertips with minimal effort. It doesn’t get much easier.

“I just want it to educate people because that’s really the first step toward a solution. That’s exactly why I designed Greenhouse with simplicity in mind, so that everyone—even kids—are able to understand it. In terms of whether Greenhouse will solve this issue—well, education is the first step. I really do believe that increased transparency will help fix the problem. Easy access to data empowers voters to make better decisions. Once people are informed, they will reject elected officials who are motived by money instead of principles.” [source]

Once you know where your member of Congress stands on the corruption scale, you can either support him or her in the next election, or not. We also need to get money out of politics once and for all. Have a look at this article by Bill Moyers that offers a range of organizations and action points to help end the fraud.

from: http://wakeup-world.com/2016/07/26/tired-of-our-bought-and-paid-for-congress-this-18-year-old-created-an-app-that-exposes-sellout-politicians/

What Did David Just Say?

Posted on July 22, 2016 by marcia

David Rockefeller Says Conspiracy Regarding ‘One World Order’ Is True

David Rockefeller is a part of American history and the only billionaire in the world who is over 100 years old. The richest oldest man on the planet is due to turn 101 in June.

He is part of a family dynasty whose name is associated with America and has become legend. His grandfather John D Rockefeller who died in 1937 was the founder of Standard Oil and the world’s richest individual.

The name Rockefeller has been associated with wealth, power, politics, finance, diplomacy, philanthropy, marijuana prohibition, aliens, UFO’s and conspiracy theories.

One such conspiracy theory is the creation of a ‘one world order’, according to which a group of ‘Elites’, including David, are milking the system for their own benefits and the benefit of their friends and fellow conspirators against the interest of the United States.

They have been accused of setting up institutions such as the ‘Trilateral Commission’ and the ‘Bilderberg Group’ among others to advance their interests nationally and globally.

Their aim is to create an international world order under a single umbrella, to deal with global issues, initiated and controlled by western countries.

Obviously such a hefty vision could be seen as a conspiracy, by the powerful and the well connected, to dominate and manipulate the weak and the fragmented people of the world.

David Rockefeller, the last former member of the unofficial royal family of America, has admitted in an article by The Independent, that if he is accused of such conspiracies to bring about a ‘one world order’, then he is proud and guilty as charged.

He says: “Some even believe [the Rockefellers] are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterising my family and me as ‘internationalists’ conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I’m proud of it.”

Although the name ‘Rockefeller’ still retains its resonance, its influence is fading. Being a Rockefeller these days ain’t what it used to be.

THE INDEPENDENT REPORTS:

David, patriarch of that family and of a vanished Wasp establishment, celebrated his 100th birthday.

These days he is pretty low in the billionaires’ pecking order: 603rd according to Forbes magazine, the chronicler of such matters, with a fortune of “only” $3.2bn.

Even the family’s total wealth, much of it locked away in trusts, is put at a relatively modest $10bn – enough to buy fleets of yachts, private jets and a couple of mansions in Belgravia, but not a patch on his grandfather John D Rockefeller.

When he died in 1937, “Senior”, the founder of Standard Oil and a contender for the world’s richest ever individual, was reckoned to have assets equal to 1.5 per cent of US GDP, about $250bn today. Compared with that, Carlos Slim, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are distant also-rans.

From almost the moment of his birth, on 12 June 1915, in the embers of the Gilded Age, David was the favourite grandchild: the one, according to “Senior”, who was “most like myself”.

The others of John Rockefeller Jnr’s six children are now long gone. Winthrop, a former governor of Arkansas, died in 1973. Abigail, David’s only sister, died in 1976, followed by John in 1978, and by Nelson – his most famous sibling, governor of New York and Gerald Ford’s vice-president – in 1979.

Laurance Rockefeller, an airline magnate, survived until 2004. David is the last one left. And in his day, Nelson notwithstanding, he was probably the most influential of them all.

David Rockfeller flourished at the intersection of business, high finance and international diplomacy. He was never elected to any political office, but in his heyday, in the 1970s and 1980s, he seemed to know every politician who mattered on the planet.

Part of that went with the job of chairman of Chase Manhattan, which David sought to make a global bank. Part was due to merely being a Rockfeller.

“Having the name can be an advantage,” he once said. “I’m more apt to get through on the telephone to somebody.” Part perhaps also reflected his much-praised work in US wartime intelligence in Europe, between 1943 and 1945.

All of this made him a networker of epic proportions (his Rolodex, in that pre-smartphone age, read like a global Who’s Who); not surprisingly the journalist and former LBJ aide Bill Moyers once called him “the unelected but indisputable chairman of the American establishment”.

From the outset, too, David was a committed internationalist. To that end, in 1973 he set up the Trilateral Commission, featuring the West’s great and good, and soon found himself the butt of conspiracy theorists around the globe.

Today, there’s much hyperventilating about the secretiveness of the Bilderberg Group (another collection of worthies favoured by David). But that fuss is nothing compared with the suspicions once aroused by the Trilateral Commission.

For the right, it was a cabal operating as a global government; the left saw an unaccountable rich man’s club, promoting free markets to the exclusion of all else. Senior’s favourite grandson was accused of being the plotter in chief – and he positively revelled in the charges.

“Some even believe [the Rockefellers] are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterising my family and me as ‘internationalists’ conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I’m proud of it.”

But the globetrotting chumminess had its downside. David Rockefeller, it was said, never met a dictator he disliked.

More specifically, he worked with his friend Henry Kissinger to persuade President Carter to allow another friend, the deposed Shah of Iran, into the US in 1979 to be treated for cancer.

The result was the Tehran embassy hostage-taking and a rupture with Iran that endures to this day.

Most fascinating perhaps is David’s relationship with the domineering Nelson. His elder sibling was tempestuous, ferociously ambitious and a compulsive womaniser. As a child, David was reserved and solitary, with an passion for collecting beetles.

As an adult, he was suave and non-confrontational, a man who loathed scenes above all else. Not surprisingly, the pair grew apart, especially after Nelson’s divorce and remarriage to his mistress Happy Murphy in 1963, a scandal that may have scuppered his presidential aspirations.

Gradually, starting even before Nelson’s death, David became the family head, his image further burnished by philanthropy: over his life, he is reckoned to have given away $900m, including $79m last year alone. In 2002, he became the first Rockfeller to write an autobiography, entitled, simply, Memoirs.

Ultimately, David Rockefeller is a reminder of how even the mightiest dynasties fade. Before the Kennedys, the Rockefellers were America’s unofficial royal family.

But the last Rockefeller to hold public office, David’s nephew Jay, retired last year from his Senate seat in West Virginia. The Kennedys are increasingly history, and, one day, the Bushes and Clintons will be as well.

The younger Rockefellers have gone their own way. Most have to make their own living; some have even changed their names. Being a Rockefeller ain’t what it used to be.

Their political relevance, however, persists. David, like Nelson, was a “Rockefeller Republican”, a well-born moderate endowed with a deep sense of noblesse oblige.

If the GOP is to recapture the White House in 2016, a dash of inclusive Rockefeller Republicanism is essential. And nothing, surely, would more delight the oldest billionaire on earth.

Source:
http://www.independent.co.uk
http://anonhq.com
yournewswire

from: http://www.realfarmacy.com/david-rockefeller-one-world/

What Google Knows