Georgetown Bank Teller Steals $185,000 From Homeless Customer With Garbage Bag Full Of Cash

Where did all this money come from?

That’s probably the first question that Phelon Davis of District Heights, Maryland, asked himself when a homeless man shuffled into the Wells Fargo branch in Georgetown where Davis worked as a teller three years ago and tried to deposit a garbage bag full of cash.

His next question was probably "do you think he"d notice if some of it went missing?"

Instead of helping the customer deposit the money into his account, Davis instead decided to take advantage of the situation, setting up a fraudulent second account under the customers’ name and eventually stealing more than $185,000 from the man, according to the Washington Post.

The 29-year-old bank teller stole more than $185,000 from a homeless customer who tried to deposit a garbage bag full of cash at a Wells Fargo branch in Georgetown.

In a deal with prosecutors, Davis pleaded guilty this week to one federal felony count of interstate transportation of stolen property, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Deepening the intrigue surrounding the story, the court filings didn’t name the man, or furnish an explanation as to how he came to possess such a large sum of cash. It describes the man only as a "street vendor."

Here’s WaPo with more:

The victim was unnamed in court filings but was described as a homeless street vendor and longtime Wells Fargo customer who had more than one account that had gone dormant because of a lack of activity.

Court filings did not identify the customer or say why a homeless person would have a large amount of cash in a bag when he showed up at the M Street NW branch where Davis worked. Outside the courtroom, Davis’s attorney, Bruce Allen Johnson Jr., said he also did not know how the individual came to have the cache of cash. “That’s the million-dollar question,” Johnson said.

In plea papers, Davis acknowledged that the customer had “thousands of dollars of cash” that he wanted to deposit in October 2014, but he lacked identification. Davis told the customer where to get ID documents and a Social Security card, and also noted the customer “had a surprisingly large balance with the bank,” according to a signed, three-page statement of the crime.

Soon after the customer tried to deposit the cash, Davis fraudulently opened a new account by forging the customer’s signature, set up an ATM card, personal identification number, email address and online logon that he controlled.

He initially funded the account with $3,000 from one of the customer’s other accounts, according to WaPo.

Slowly over the next two years, Davis transferred $177,400 between the customer’s accounts, withdrew $185,440, and transported at least $5,000 withdrawn from ATMs in DC to his home in Maryland – triggering the federal charge.

The customer remained oblivious to the fraud, as he could only see the balance by checking on his account at an ATM.

Davis used the stolen money for a down payment on his home, to pay off personal debt, and fund vacations in Aruba, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Mexico.

As part of his plea, Davis agreed to pay back the stolen money, and Assistant US Attorney Kondi J. Kleinman said he would likely face a sentence of 18 to 30 months under federal guidelines. However, the sentencing judge has discretion to assign a longer, or shorter, sentence.  

“Did you, in fact, take money from an account as Mr. Kleinman described?” U.S. Magistrate Robin M. Meriweather asked in the Thursday plea hearing.

“Yes, ma’am, I did,” said the soft-spoken Davis.

Davis’s attorney, Johnson, said outside of court that “he greatly regrets the decisions he made and is dedicated to doing everything he can to make it right, including restitution. He is putting everything aside to repay the money and do what he can to repair what he’s done to his name, his reputation and to the victim.”

WaPo reports that a date for Davis’s sentencing hasn’t been set.
 

Prosecutors Unveil Full Details Of Anthony Weiner's Pedophilia

Earlier today we reported that as part of the government"s sentencing memorandum (published at the bottom), federal prosecutors asked that disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner, and the man Hillary Clinton has quietly added to what has become a virtually infinite list of reasons why she lost the presidential election, be sentenced to about two years in prison for engaging in sexting with an underage, 15-year-old girl. Prosecutors filed paper in Manhattan Federal Court on Wednesday in advance of Weiner’s sentencing. In the document, prosecutors asked that the judge use the sentencing as an opportunity to send a message to other perverted politicians:

The Government respectfully submits this memorandum in connection with the sentencing of Anthony Weiner, which is scheduled for September 25, 2017, following his guilty plea to transferring obscene material to a minor. Although the defendant’s self-destructive path from United States Congressman to felon is indisputably sad, his crime is serious and his demonstrated need for deterrence is real. The non-custodial sentence that Weiner proposes is simply inadequate; his crime deserves time in prison. For the reasons set forth below, the Government respectfully requests that Court sentence Weiner to a term of imprisonment within the range of 21 to 27 months.

Weiner"s sentencing will take place almost exactly a year after the New York Post published a story about him sexting with another woman who wasn’t his wife. Weiner said he would plead guilty in May after prosecutors brought charges following revelations that he also sexted with the 15-year-old, whom he met over Twitter. Both the girl and her father told the Daily Mail that Weiner knew she was underaged when they were corresponding.

And just to make sure that Weiner does end up in jail, the US Attorney for the district of New York, Joon Kim, laid out in vivid - and gruesome detail - the circumstances of his pedophilia. As taken from the prosecutor memorandum:

In the evening of January 23, 2016, a 15-year-old girl (the “Minor Victim”) initiated contact with the defendant by sending him a direct message on Twitter. Over the next several hours, the Minor Victim and Weiner exchanged a series of messages, ranging from the mundane to the provocative. Early in the exchange, the Minor Victim revealed to Weiner that she was in high school. Despite knowing he was communicating with a high school student, Weiner participated in increasingly suggestive exchanges, telling the Minor Victim, among other things, that he thought she was “kinda sorta gorgeous.” Their communications continued the next morning on Facebook messenger, then moved to Kik, and at some later point, Confide and Snapchat. The latter three all are messaging and photo-sharing applications that delete messages and images once viewed.

As January turned to February, their intermittent exchanges grew more lascivious. This was despite the fact that there could be no reasonable doubt in Weiner’s mind that he was chatting with a minor – in addition to having revealed that she was a high school student, the Minor Victim told Weiner that she was getting her learner’s permit. She explained in Facebook chats that she has “parents that wouldn’t approve of some of the things” she does, and that she likes “older guys,” “[b]ut that’s illegal.” The defendant correctly observed, “You are young,” in one Kik message.

Against that backdrop, between February 17 and 23, 2016, Weiner and the Minor Victim participated in three video chat sessions on Skype.

There is no dispute that the Minor Victim repeatedly suggested that she and the defendant participate in video chats on Skype. Those suggestions were not, however, one-sided. For example, Twitter records reveal that during their first exchanges the night of January 23, 2016, at some point after the Minor Victim had suggested that they Skype, the defendant said “Leave the complex stuff for Skype.” That night as well, after a suggestive exchange, the defendant said “Maybe Skype someday.” Thus, although it was the Minor Victim who initially sought out Weiner, as the Government readily concedes, Weiner immediately responded to the Minor Victim’s overture and willingly participated in the offense conduct thereafter.

It was then that the Minor Victim made clear that she was not just a minor – she was, in fact, only 15 years old. That did not stop Weiner. During the latter two Skype sessions, on February 18 and 23, 2016, and in a Snapchat communication on March 9, 2016, the defendant used graphic and obscene language to ask the Minor Victim to display her naked body and touch herself, which she did. He also sent an obscene message to the Minor Victim on Confide, describing what he would do to her, if she were 18. Part and parcel of these disturbing – and criminal – exchanges, the defendant also sent the Minor Victim adult pornography. In approximately March 2016, after several months of intermittent exchanges, communications between the defendant and Minor Victim largely stopped. The Minor Victim made efforts to re-engage, but was met with limited responsiveness.

The instant conduct was revealed to the public and law enforcement in September 2016, when the Daily Mail published the Minor Victim’s account of her communications with Weiner after she participated in a paid interview.

And some further commentary from the proscuting attorney:

This is not merely a “sexting” case. The defendant did far more than exchange typed words on a lifeless cellphone screen with a faceless stranger. With full knowledge that he was communicating with a real 15-year-old girl, the defendant asked her to engage in sexually explicit conduct via Skype and Snapchat, where her body was on display, and where she was asked to sexually perform for him. That offense – transmitting obscenity to a minor to induce her to engage in sexually explicit conduct by video chat and photo – is far from mere “sexting.” Weiner’s criminal conduct was very serious, and the sentence imposed should reflect that seriousness.

The defendant claims that he “responded to the victim’s request for sexually explicit messages not because she was a teenager, but in spite of it.” While the Government does not contend that Weiner engaged in inappropriate sexual exchanges with other minors or that he is a pedophile, his professed ambivalence towards the Minor Victim’s age is belied by the defendant’s own statements to the court-appointed evaluator during his evaluation. Moreover, the defendant has acknowledged an interest in legal, adult, teen-themed pornography. In the context of this admitted interest, his insistence that he deserves a lighter sentence because the Minor Victim’s age meant nothing to him rings hollow. Even if the Court were to credit Weiner’s claim of ambivalence to the Minor Victim’s age, that purported ambivalence is part of the problem. That his victim was a minor – and therefore his conduct a serious crime – did not deter Weiner from forging ahead.

The defendant’s submission repeatedly makes note of the 15-year-old Minor Victim’s various motives for communicating with Weiner and her profit from sharing those communications with the media. While careful not to cast blame on the Minor Victim outright or disclaim ultimate responsibility for his crime, he relies, in part, on the circumstances of their communications in arguing for a sentence of probation. That argument should be rejected, and Weiner should be sentenced for what he did – not what motived the Minor Victim. Weiner, a grown man, a father, and a former lawmaker, willfully and knowingly asked a 15-year-old girl to display her body and engage in sexually explicit conduct for him online. Such conduct warrants a meaningful sentence of incarceration.

Defense lawyers had portrayed the girl as an aggressor, saying she wanted to generate material for a book and possibly influence the presidential election. Prosecutors responded that Weiner should be sentenced for what he did, and his victim"s motives should not influence his punishment. A defense lawyer declined to comment Wednesday.

Weiner, 53, said in a submission last week that he"s undergoing treatment and is profoundly sorry for subjecting the North Carolina high school student to what his lawyers called his "deep sickness."

In a plea bargain, Weiner agreed not to appeal any sentence between 21 and 27 months. Prosecutors said the sentence should fall within that span, and they noted that Probation Office authorities had recommended a 27-month prison term.

He will be sentenced to prison next Monday.

The full sentencing guildeline filed by prosecutors is below.

Legal Round Up: 3 Articles on the Law, and Fighting Back

Via The Daily Bell

In China, Foreigners Can Buy a Marriage

China is a dystopian nightmare for many who live there. Yet even the hardcore communist regime cannot keep a little freedom off the black market.

For many immigrants and foreign workers in China, they are even lower on the social ladder than the peasants. These people cannot own property, and often their children are not allowed to attend school.

But someone found a solution. Fake marriages. Foreigners in China are “marrying” Chinese citizens, even when the foreigner is sometimes already married. This helps foreigners living in Beijing buy property there. It also helps migrant workers send their kids to school and meld into a normal life.

This arrangement has increased since China responded to crowded conditions with more restrictions on foreigners. It sounds a lot like foreigners in America who get married in order to obtain a green card.

Governments just can’t keep creative black market businesses from flourishing when their restrictions leave no other choice.

We’ve even heard of straight men in the military marrying other men to take advantage of the benefits.

Prison Time for Thwarting Emissions Regulations

Volkswagen found that they could not design a diesel engine that would meet federal pollution requirements. So instead, they created software that would cheat the regulations.

Now, a Volkswagon engineer has been sentenced to 40 months in prison for his role in faking the emissions standards.

His crime is basically trying to continue doing business while being obstructed by the government. Is America a free country? They arbitrarily limit the products companies can create. Then they throw a man in prison for breaking their stupid rules.

Courts Actually Holding Police Accountable

Let’s end on a positive note. An appeals court has issued a ruling that protects two important ways of holding police accountable.

First, it should be a little harder for police to charge everything that moves with “obstruction.” The court ruling that says the First Amendment protects speech critical of police officers.

The case stemmed from a man who stepped onto his porch while the police arrested his wife in their driveway. He came outside to yell to them that they were overreacting to her failure to obey orders to walk backwards towards them. She was partially handicapped and could not easily comply.

When the man did not go back into his house he was arrested. He never even moved towards the police. He simply spoke to them while they were trying to arrest his wife. That was enough for them to charge him with obstruction.

Turns out they didn’t even have cause to arrest the wife either. She was the passenger in a car which crossed the center line of the road, and then drove for 40 whole seconds before pulling over, into the woman’s driveway.

So the courts said the lawsuit against the officers on Constitutional rights violations may move forward. The court found no reason for them to be granted sovereign immunity, and be shielded from lawsuits.

Unfortunately, the decision was not unanimous. A dissenting judge said he thinks holding police accountable for their actions will make it harder for them to do their jobs.

More bad news: this judge was considered by Trump for the Supreme Court.

Paul Craig Roberts Explains How We Know The So-Called "Civil War" Was Not Over Slavery

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

When I read Professor Thomas DiLorenzo’s article, the question that lept to mind was, “How come the South is said to have fought for slavery when the North wasn’t fighting against slavery?”

Two days before Lincoln’s inauguration as the 16th President, Congress, consisting only of the Northern states, passed overwhelmingly on March 2, 1861, the Corwin Amendment that gave constitutional protection to slavery. Lincoln endorsed the amendment in his inaugural address, saying “I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”

Quite clearly, the North was not prepared to go to war in order to end slavery when on the very eve of war the US Congress and incoming president were in the process of making it unconstitutional to abolish slavery.

Here we have absolute total proof that the North wanted the South kept in the Union far more than the North wanted to abolish slavery.

If the South’s real concern was maintaining slavery, the South would not have turned down the constitutional protection of slavery offered them on a silver platter by Congress and the President. Clearly, for the South also the issue was not slavery.

The real issue between North and South could not be reconciled on the basis of accommodating slavery. The real issue was economic as DiLorenzo, Charles Beard and other historians have documented.

The North offered to preserve slavery irrevocably, but the North did not offer to give up the high tariffs and economic policies that the South saw as inimical to its interests.

Blaming the war on slavery was the way the northern court historians used morality to cover up Lincoln’s naked aggression and the war crimes of his generals.

Demonizing the enemy with moral language works for the victor. And it is still ongoing. We see in the destruction of statues the determination to shove remaining symbols of the Confederacy down the Memory Hole.

Today the ignorant morons, thoroughly brainwashed by Identity Politics, are demanding removal of memorials to Robert E. Lee, an alleged racist toward whom they express violent hatred. This presents a massive paradox. Robert E. Lee was the first person offered command of the Union armies. How can it be that a “Southern racist” was offered command of the Union Army if the Union was going to war to free black slaves?

Virginia did not secede until April 17, 1861, two days after Lincoln called up troops for the invasion of the South.

Surely there must be some hook somewhere that the dishonest court historians can use on which to hang an explanation that the war was about slavery. It is not an easy task. Only a small minority of southerners owned slaves. Slaves were brought to the New World by Europeans as a labor force long prior to the existence of the US and the Southern states in order that the abundant land could be exploited. For the South slavery was an inherited institution that pre-dated the South. Diaries and letters of soldiers fighting for the Confederacy and those fighting for the Union provide no evidence that the soldiers were fighting for or against slavery. Princeton historian, Pulitzer Prize winner, Lincoln Prize winner, president of the American Historical Association, and member of the editorial board of Encyclopedia Britannica, James M. McPherson, in his book based on the correspondence of one thousand soldiers from both sides, What They Fought For, 1861-1865, reports that they fought for two different understandings of the Constitution.

As for the Emancipation Proclamation, on the Union side, military officers were concerned that the Union troops would desert if the Emancipation Proclamation gave them the impression that they were being killed and maimed for the sake of blacks. That is why Lincoln stressed that the proclamation was a “war measure” to provoke an internal slave rebellion that would draw Southern troops off the front lines.

If we look carefully we can find a phony hook in the South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession (December 20, 1860) as long as we ignore the reasoning of the document. Lincoln’s election caused South Carolina to secede. During his campaign for president Lincoln used rhetoric aimed at the abolitionist vote. (Abolitionists did want slavery abolished for moral reasons, though it is sometimes hard to see their morality through their hate, but they never controlled the government.)

South Carolina saw in Lincoln’s election rhetoric intent to violate the US Constitution, which was a voluntary agreement, and which recognized each state as a free and independent state. After providing a history that supported South Carolina’s position, the document says that to remove all doubt about the sovereignty of states “an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.”

South Carolina saw slavery as the issue being used by the North to violate the sovereignty of states and to further centralize power in Washington. The secession document makes the case that the North, which controlled the US government, had broken the compact on which the Union rested and, therefore, had made the Union null and void. For example, South Carolina pointed to Article 4 of the US Constitution, which reads: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” Northern states had passed laws that nullified federal laws that upheld this article of the compact. Thus, the northern states had deliberately broken the compact on which the union was formed.

The obvious implication was that every aspect of states’ rights protected by the 10th Amendment could now be violated. And as time passed they were, so South Carolina’s reading of the situation was correct.

The secession document reads as a defense of the powers of states and not as a defense of slavery. Here is the document: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/south-carolina-declaration-of-causes-of-secession/

Read it and see what you decide.

A court historian, who is determined to focus attention away from the North’s destruction of the US Constitution and the war crimes that accompanied the Constitution’s destruction, will seize on South Carolina’s use of slavery as the example of the issue the North used to subvert the Constitution. The court historian’s reasoning is that as South Carolina makes a to-do about slavery, slavery must have been the cause of the war.

As South Carolina was the first to secede, its secession document probably was the model for other states. If so, this is the avenue by which court historians, that is, those who replace real history with fake history, turn the war into a war over slavery.

Once people become brainwashed, especially if it is by propaganda that serves power, they are more or less lost forever. It is extremely difficult to bring them to truth. Just look at the pain and suffering inflicted on historian David Irving for documenting the truth about the war crimes committed by the allies against the Germans. There is no doubt that he is correct, but the truth is unacceptable.

The same is the case with the War of Northern Aggression. Lies masquerading as history have been institutionalized for 150 years. An institutionalized lie is highly resistant to truth.

Education has so deteriorated in the US that many people can no longer tell the difference between an explanation and an excuse or justification. In the US denunciation of an orchestrated hate object is a safer path for a writer than explanation. Truth is the casualty.

That truth is so rare everywhere in the Western World is why the West is doomed. The United States, for example, has an entire population that is completely ignorant of its own history.

As George Orwell said, the best way to destroy a people is to destroy their history.

"He's A Greedy Little Man" And A "Snake" - Transcripts Of Shkreli Jury Hearings Emerge

Martin Shkreli’s lawyers reportedly had to interview more than 250 prospective jurors before agreeing on 12. At the time, media reports hinted at some of the funnier reasons given by prospective jurors to get out of serving (one individual said he was biased against Shkreli because he had “disrespected the Wu Tang Clan"). Ultimately, the jury found the former hedge fund manager and pharmaceutical company CEO guilty on three out of eight counts of fraud.

Now, Harper’s Magazine has published transcripts from the Voir Dire hearings. The transcripts offer insight into how the trial of "the most hated man in America" came together. In most cases, the prospective juror offers some version of "he"s terrible" and is promptly excused.

When asked if he was aware of the defendant, one juror said yes and “I hate him,” before calling Shkreli “a greedy little man.”

“The court: The purpose of jury selection is to ensure fairness and impartiality in this case. If you think that you could not be fair and impartial, it is your duty to tell me. All right. Juror Number 1.

Juror no. 1: I’m aware of the defendant and I hate him.

Benjamin Brafman: I’m sorry.

Juror no. 1: I think he’s a greedy little man.

The court: Jurors are obligated to decide the case based only on the evidence. Do you agree?

Juror no. 1: I don’t know if I could. I wouldn’t want me on this jury.

The court: Juror Number 1 is excused. Juror Number 18.”

One guy said he felt biased against Shkreli as soon as he saw his face.

“Juror no. 40: I’m taking prescription medication. I would be upset if it went up by a thousand percent. I saw the testimony on TV to Congress and I saw his face on the news last night. By the time I came in and sat down and he turned around, I felt immediately I was biased.

The court: Sir, we are going to excuse you. Juror Number 47, please come up.”

Another juror equated Shkreli with Bernie Madoff who, let’s remember, stole $70 billion from his clients.

“Juror no. 47: He’s the most hated man in America. In my opinion, he equates with Bernie Madoff with the drugs for pregnant women going from $15 to $750. My parents are in their eighties. They’re struggling to pay for their medication. My mother was telling me yesterday how my father’s cancer drug is $9,000 a month.

The court: The case is going to come before you on evidence that you must consider fairly and with an open mind.

Juror no. 47: I would find that difficult.

The court: And that’s based on your parents’ experience with medication?

Juror no. 47: It’s based on people working very hard for their money. He defrauded his company and his investors, and that’s not right.

The court: Ma’am, we’re going to excuse you. Juror Number 52, how are you?”

One guy said he didn’t know who Shkreli was, but after taking one look at him said he looks like a "snake."

“Juror no. 52: When I walked in here today I looked at him, and in my head, that’s a snake — not knowing who he was. I just walked in and looked right at him and that’s a snake.

Brafman: So much for the presumption of innocence.

The court: We will excuse Juror Number 52. Juror Number 67?”

One prospective juror said he’d “never be able to forget” how Shkreli raised the price of Daraprim.

"Juror no. 67: The fact that he raised the price of that AIDS medication, like, such an amount of money disgusts me. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget that. Who does that, puts profit and self-interest ahead of anything else? So it’s not a far stretch that he could do what he’s accused of.

The court: Please go to the jury room and tell them you have been excused. Juror Number 70.”

One person described Shkreli as “the face of corporate greed in America," and that he"d need to be convinced of his innocence because he assumes Shkreli is guilty.

“Juror no. 77: From everything I’ve seen on the news, everything I’ve read, I believe the defendant is the face of corporate greed in America.

Brafman: We would object.

Juror no. 77: You’d have to convince me he was innocent rather than guilty.

The court: I will excuse this juror. Hello, Juror Number 125.”

Juror number 144 said Shkreli “looks like a dick.”

“Juror no. 144: I heard through the news of how the defendant changed the price of a pill by up-selling it. I heard he bought an album from the Wu-Tang Clan for a million dollars.

The court: The question is, have you heard anything that would affect your ability to decide this case with an open mind. Can you do that?

Juror no. 144: I don’t think I can because he kind of looks like a dick.

The court: You are Juror Number 144 and we will excuse you. Come forward, Juror Number 155.”

One juror said he couldn’t understand whether Shkreli was stupid, or just greedy.

“Juror no. 28: I don’t like this person at all. I just can’t understand why he would be so stupid as to take an antibiotic which H.I.V. people need and jack it up five thousand percent. I would honestly, like, seriously like to go over there.

The court: Sir, thank you.

Juror no. 28: Is he stupid or greedy? I can’t understand.

The court: We will excuse you. Juror 41, are you coming up?”

Shkreli is totally guilty, another juror said…and he disrespected the Wu Tang Clan.

“Juror no. 59: Your Honor, totally he is guilty and in no way can I let him slide out of anything because...

The court: All right. We are going to excuse you, sir.

Juror no. 59: And he disrespected the Wu-Tang Clan.”

While no date has been set, Shkreli is expected to be sentenced by federal judge Kiya Matsumoto some time during the coming months. Though Shkreli said on one of his post-trial livestreams that he expects to only serve a few months, possibly under house arrest. But legal experts believe that the sentencing is when Shkreli’s past demons will come back to haunt him in the form of a lengthy stay in federal prison. He could also be on the hook for millions of dollars in fines. After all, Shkreli has mocked not only the Brooklyn prosecutors who tried him, but members of Congress. It wouldn’t exactly look like a prosecutorial victory if they just let him walk away.
 

Australian City Council Halts Construction Of Synagogue Over Fears That ISIS Could Target It

Authored by Daniel Lang via SHTFplan.com,

People living in the West have given up a lot to satisfy their government’s concerns over terrorism. Here in the US for instance, our right to privacy in our homes, on our persons, and especially in our communications, has essentially died since 9/11. Everything we say on our phones or search on the internet is catalogued by the NSA without a warrant, we can’t fly on an airplane without being groped and prodded by TSA agents, it’s now fairly common to be forced through police checkpoints many miles away from any border.

The US isn’t alone in this regard. Across the board, every Western nation has sacrificed essential freedoms in the name of combating terrorism. The only difference is that unlike in the US, most Western nations have sacrificed more speech related freedoms rather than privacy (though all Westerners have lost both rights to some degree). This is especially true in Europe and Canada, where expressing right wing opinions or criticizing Islam is now considered a hate crime, and is believed to be an invitation for more terrorist attacks.

Australians however, seems to be close to losing their right to practice any religion they want. That’s what the Jewish community in Sydney learned recently when they tried to build a synagogue. Residents and city council members decided to not let the structure come to fruition because they feared it would invite terrorist attacks.

The temple was to be built in Bondi, a short walk from Australia’s famous Bondi Beach. But locals worried that the space would pose a security risk to nearby residents, motorists and pedestrians. As evidence of that threat, the council pointed to the synagogue’s own design, which included setback buildings and blast walls. They also said the design would have an “unacceptable impact” on the street and neighbourhood.

“A number of residents agreed with the contentions … and provided additional evidence against the development of the site,” the council said in a statement.

And on top of that, the courts complained that the building’s design would only protect the worshipers inside.

But the court sided with the council. In its decision, the court explained that western countries are under threat from Daesh, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and that the potential of an attack in Australia is considered “probable” by government officials. The court also noted that the designs would serve only to protect those inside the building, not those outside.

You know the West is slipping into collectivist madness, when you can’t construct a building that is only designed to protect the people inside of it from an external threat. That would be like saying that you’re not allowed to own body armor because it doesn’t protect bystanders from gunfire. (Oh wait, body armor is highly regulated in Australia and most people who aren’t cops, soldiers, or security guards can’t own it? Color me shocked.) But worst of all, the refusal to let this synagogue be built is nothing more than an admission that the terrorists have won.

“The decision is unprecedented,” Rabbi Yehoram Ulman told news.com.au. “Its implications are enormous. It basically implies that no Jewish organization should be allowed to exist in residential areas. It stands to stifle Jewish existence and activity in Sydney and indeed, by creating a precedent, the whole of Australia, and by extension rewarding terrorism.”

It’s such a big win for terrorism that I doubt any terrorist organization ever expected to have these results. Here’s a country of 24 million people that has lost less than 10 people to terrorism over the past 20 years. They all died at the hands of Islamic radicals, who are known to despise Judaism. Sydney’s response is to prevent a Synagogue from being built in a vain effort to prevent more terrorist attacks. The city is doing exactly what Islamic terrorists want them to do, and these terrorists barely had to lift a finger.

If this kind of moral weakness isn’t overcome in the West, then our freedoms will not survive the next generation.

This New Piece Of Legislation Could Demolish State Gun Control Laws Across The Country

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Over the past century there has been one undeniable trend working against gun rights. Put simply, as time goes on, it’s harder for a law abiding citizen to own and use a firearm, largely due to the proliferation of state and federal gun laws. A hundred years ago, one could own pretty much any firearm without restriction, and buy a firearm without even a background check (though of course one argue could that a few of these laws are a good idea). Now it’s a heavily regulated industry.

And sure, there have been some victories for the Second Amendment. A few decades ago there were only a handful of states where it was fairly easy to attain a concealed carry permit, and even many deeply conservative states didn’t issue these permits at all. Now that situation has completely reversed, and continues to improve. However, when you look at gun rights on a long enough timeline, it’s obvious that the Second Amendment has lost more than it has won, as state and federal laws have chipped away at our rights little by little.

Fortunately there is a new piece of legislation that could significantly roll back the worst of these laws on the state level, in particular the laws that were put in place under the Obama administration. The Second Amendment Guarantee Act, which was recently proposed by New York Congressman Chris Collins, could prove to be the most significant attack on gun control laws that we’ve seen in generations. According to a press release issued by Collins’ office:

“This legislation would protect the Second Amendment rights of New Yorkers that were unjustly taken away by Andrew Cuomo,” said Collins.

 “I am a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment and have fought against all efforts to condemn these rights. I stand with the law-abiding citizens of this state that have been outraged by the SAFE Act and voice my commitment to roll back these regulations.”

SAGA would provide an intimidating bulwark against gun control advocates in blue states. In a nutshell, it would prevent these states from passing restrictive laws that exceed the scope of federal gun laws.

In the Collins’ bill, States or local governments would not be able to regulate, prohibit, or require registration and licensing (that are any more restrictive under Federal law) for the sale, manufacturing, importation, transfer, possession, or marketing of a rifle or shotgun. Additionally, “rifle or shotgun” includes any part of the weapon including any detachable magazine or ammunition feeding devise and any type of pistol grip or stock design.

Under this legislation, any current or future laws enacted by a state or political subdivision that exceeds federal law for rifles and shotguns would be void. Should a state violate this law, and a plaintiff goes to court, the court will award the prevailing plaintiff a reasonable attorney’s fee in addition to any other damages.

For decades, gun owners living in certain states have had their rights slowly stripped away by legislative bodies that repeatedly passed laws which are in violation of the Second Amendment, and they’ve done so almost completely unopposed. It’s the perfect example of what the Founders hoped to prevent in our society. They feared that the rights of the minority could be taken away by the majority, which is exactly what gun owners in leftists states have had to contend with.

But if SAGA passes, state governments will no longer be able to bully gun owners with their onerous and unconstitutional laws. Gun owners will finally have the same right to bear arms in every state of the union.

America 2017 = France 1789

Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

We are looking more and more like France on the eve of its revolution in 1789. Our classes are distributed differently, but the inequity is just as sharp. America’s “aristocracy,” once based strictly on bank accounts, acts increasingly hereditary as the vapid offspring and relations of “stars” (in politics, showbiz, business, and the arts) assert their prerogatives to fame, power, and riches - think the voters didn’t grok the sinister import of Hillary’s “it’s my turn” message?

What’s especially striking in similarity to the court of the Bourbons is the utter cluelessness of America’s entitled power elite to the agony of the moiling masses below them and mainly away from the coastal cities. Just about everything meaningful has been taken away from them, even though many of the material trappings of existence remain: a roof, stuff that resembles food, cars, and screens of various sizes.

But the places they are supposed to call home are either wrecked — the original small towns and cities of America — or replaced by new “developments” so devoid of artistry, history, thought, care, and charm that they don’t add up to communities, and are so obviously unworthy of affection, that the very idea of “home” becomes a cruel joke.

These places were bad enough in the 1960s and 70s, when the people who lived in them at least were able to report to paying jobs assembling products and managing their distribution. Now those people don’t have that to give a little meaning to their existence, or cover the costs of it. Public space was never designed into the automobile suburbs, and the sad remnants of it were replaced by ersatz substitutes, like the now-dying malls. Everything else of a public and human associational nature has been shoved into some kind of computerized box with a screen on it.

The floundering non-elite masses have not learned the harsh lesson of our time that the virtual is not an adequate substitute for the authentic, while the elites who create all this vicious crap spend millions to consort face-to-face in the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard telling each other how wonderful they are for providing all the artificial social programming and glitzy hardware for their paying customers.

The effect of this dynamic relationship so far has been powerfully soporific. You can deprive people of a true home for a while, and give them virtual friends on TV to project their emotions onto, and arrange to give them cars via some financing scam or other to keep them moving mindlessly around an utterly desecrated landscape under the false impression that they’re going somewhere — but we’re now at the point where ordinary people can’t even carry the costs of keeping themselves hostage to these degrading conditions.

The next big entertainment for them will be the financial implosion of the elites themselves as the governing forces of physics finally overcome all the ruses and stratagems of the elites who have been playing games with money. Professional observers never tires of saying that the government can’t run out of money (because they can always print more of it) but they can certainly destroy the value of that money and shred the consensual confidence that allows it to operate as money.

That’s exactly what is about to commence at the end of the summer when the government runs out of cash-on-hand and congress finds itself utterly paralyzed by party animus to patch the debt ceiling problem that disables new borrowing. The elites may be home from the Hamptons and the Vineyard by then, but summers may never be the same for them again.

The Deep State may win its war against the pathetic President Trump, but it won’t win any war against the imperatives of the universe and the way that expresses itself in the true valuation of things. And when the moment of clarification arrives — the instant of cosmic price discovery — the clueless elites will have to really and truly worry about the value of their heads.

Federal Judge Blocks California Magazine Confiscation Law: "The Constitution Is A Shield From The Tyranny Of The Majority"

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

It’s no secret that people on the left have a disdain for our representative form of government. That’s why they threw such a big fit over the electoral college system after the last election. They don’t like the idea that laws and elections aren’t determined by the will of the majority, and they don’t recognize how dangerous that would be for everyone’s freedom (or worse, in some cases they know exactly how dangerous it would be).

But their hatred for our constitutional republic extends beyond the electoral college. They would prefer to live under a pure democracy, where the majority of the population can trash the rights of the minority. They would rather live under a system where individual rights are sacrificed for their twisted version of “the common good.”

Fortunately, that’s not the system we live under. In this country, your rights can’t be taken away just because most people think those rights are dangerous. That fact was made abundantly clear recently, when a judge in California filed a preliminary injunction against a law that would force gun owners to give up large capacity magazines that had been bought legally before they were banned. The injunction effectively prevents California from enforcing the law for the time being.

“The Court does not lightly enjoin a state statute, even on a preliminary basis,” Judge Benitez said in the ruling.

“However, just as the Court is mindful that a majority of California voters approved Proposition 63 and that the government has a legitimate interest in protecting the public from gun violence, it is equally mindful that the Constitution is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. Plaintiffs’ entitlements to enjoy Second Amendment rights and just compensation are not eliminated simply because they possess ‘unpopular’ magazines holding more than 10 rounds.”

Judge Benitez also feared that Proposition 63 would turn millions of law abiding citizens into criminals.

“If this injunction does not issue, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of otherwise law-abiding citizens will have an untenable choice: become an outlaw or dispossess one’s self of lawfully acquired property,” he said in the ruling.

“That is a choice they should not have to make. Not on this record.”

But as you might expect, not everyone is pleased with the ruling. State attorney general and former Democratic representative Xavier Becerra was quick to criticize the ruling.

“Proposition 63 was overwhelmingly approved by voters to increase public safety and enhance security in a sensible and constitutional way,” Becerra said in a statement on the ruling.

“Restricting large capacity magazines and preventing them from ending up in the wrong hands is critical for the well-being of our communities. I will defend the will of California voters because we cannot continue to lose innocent lives due to gun violence.”

Of course, there’s no evidence to suggest that magazine capacity laws are in any way constitutional, nor is there any proof that they would actually reduce gun violence. In fact, anyone with any firearm expertise can prove that magazine capacity limits are no barrier for a criminal or mass shooter.

But that doesn’t matter to liberals like Xavier Becerra. He has his agenda, and he thinks the “will of California voters” trumps the fundamental rights of every resident in his state. Thank god we don’t live in a pure democracy, or we would have lost all of our rights long ago.

Soft Sharia Emerges In Turkey

Authored by Burak Bekdil via The Gatestone Institute,

• The bad news about the Turkish justice system is that it is increasingly religiously ideological, reminiscent of the Ottoman justice system where non-Muslims were legally inferior to the Muslims and were constantly reminded of their inferiority to the dominant community through restrictions and markers.


• The legislation reads that law enforcement officials cannot "intentionally marry a person who is known to be impure, or to stay in a marriage, or continue to live with such a person."


• In addition, the decree covers stricter rules against drinking, gambling, the vague and emphatic "going to places that would ruin your reputation," as well as "excessive spending".

The good news about Turkish justice is that despite 15 years of not-so-creeping Islamization, court verdicts do not yet sentence wrongdoers to public lashing, stoning, amputations or public hangings in main city squares. The bad news about the Turkish justice system is that it is increasingly religiously ideological, reminiscent of the Ottoman justice system where non-Muslims were legally inferior to the Muslims and were, in principle, expected to be constantly reminded of their inferiority to the dominant community through restrictions and markers.

In 21^st century Turkey, fortunately, there are not [yet] markers revealing non-Muslim citizens or laws discriminating against non-Muslims. Nevertheless, with or without markers, there is positive discrimination in favor of pious Muslims and against the others. Turkish law enforcement is embarrassingly pro-pious Sunni Muslim.

Turkey, nominally, is not a Sharia state. But it is becoming one on a de facto basis. In January, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan"s government issued a decree stipulating that law enforcement officials, including security officials, police and coast guard officers, could lose their jobs if they marry a "known adulterer." The legislation reads that law enforcement officials cannot "intentionally marry a person who is known to be impure, or to stay in a marriage, or continue to live with such a person." The offense is punishable by up to 24 months" suspension from work. In addition, the decree covers stricter rules against drinking, gambling, the vague and emphatic "going to places that would ruin your reputation," as well as "excessive spending," all while off duty.

In January, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan"s government issued a decree stipulating that law enforcement officials could lose their jobs if they marry "a person who is known to be impure." (Photo by Lintao Zhang/Pool/Getty Images)

What do those new offenses have in common? Adultery, impurity, drinking, gambling and excessive spending? They are all sins mentioned in the holy book of Islam. This is not only problematic from the viewpoint of modern state and public administration, but also from a technical point of view. When the offense is defined in such vague and holy scriptural language, judgment will inevitably become arbitrary. Who is a "known adulterer," for instance? Who is a person "known to be impure?" How will the Turkish state define "purity" or "a pure person?" How would an officer know beforehand that a place he goes for the first time will "ruin his reputation?" And what percentage of one"s salary will mean "excessive spending?"

Last year a Turkish man stood trial for seriously injuring [with the intention to kill, according to the indictment] his ex-wife by stabbing her with a screwdriver. The court sentenced the man to an aggravated life sentence. The judges then gave the defendant a shocking reduction: Just 11 years in jail instead of life. Why the generosity? Because the court found out that the victim had the habit of going out with her "divorced lady friends and drank alcohol". In other words, the Turkish court ruled that the woman had half-deserved to be murdered because of that.

In April, an apparently conservative Turk addressed Selina Dogan, a Turkish-Armenian opposition MP, with the words: "You are all whores ... You are the servants of Byzantium." Dogan sued the man for hate-speech and insult. A Turkish court admitted that the content shared in social media indeed was insulting but acquitted the defendant. Dogan said: "This [ruling] is a free pass for hate speech".

More recently, Nurettin Yildiz, a columnist for the Islamist Milli Gazete, declared that in Islam it was permissible for children at the age of six to get married. Normally one would expect psychiatric examination for the man or prosecution for pedophilia. But Turkish justice can sometimes be generously tolerant to freedom of speech -- as long as the content is Islamist. A prosecutor, citing freedom of expression, dropped charges against Yildiz. Meanwhile, a secular news site, Odatv, outraged by Yildiz"s statement, placed the man in the news with the headline: "Religious Fanatics Perverting." This time, the prosecution was not as generous as in the case of Yildiz. A prosecutor is now demanding up to 28 months in jail for Baris Terkoglu, editor of Odatv, for insulting Yildiz. Defending the marriage of six-year-olds is fine, but calling that a perversion is an offense punishable by jail.

One important difference between a modern state and a religion-based state is that the former punishes offenses harmful to the public interest while the latter tends to punish the "sin". Turkey, once a semi-modern state, is now drifting fast into the Sharia order -- without the name Sharia.

Germany Faces Wave Of Muslim Honor Killings

Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

• The court heard how Amer K. stabbed the mother of his three children in the chest and neck more than twenty times with a large kitchen knife, because he thought she wanted to divorce him.


• "Then he takes the knife and plunges it into her chest, [penetrating] the pericardium and heart muscle. A second stab opens the left abdominal cavity. Nurettin B. then pulls out the ax. With the blunt side he hits her head, cracking her skull. Then he grabs the rope. On one end he ties a gibbet knot around her neck, then he ties the other end to the trailer hitch on [his car]... He races through the streets at 80 km/h [until] the rope breaks." — State Prosecutor Ann-Kristin Fröhlich, reconstructing the husband"s actions.


• In Ahaus, a 27-year-old Nigerian asylum seeker stabbed to death a 22-year-old woman after she seemingly offended his honor by rejecting his romantic advances.

The trial of a Kurdish man who tied one of his three wives to the back of a car and dragged her through the streets of a town in Lower Saxony has drawn attention to an outbreak of Muslim honor violence in Germany.

Honor violence - ranging from emotional abuse to physical and sexual violence to murder - is usually carried out by male family members against female family members who are perceived to have brought shame upon a family or clan.

Offenses include refusing to agree to an arranged marriage, entering into a relationship with a non-Muslim or someone not approved by the family, refusing to stay in an abusive marriage or living an excessively Western lifestyle. In practice, however, the lines between crimes of honor and crimes of passion are often blurred and any challenge to male authority can elicit retribution, which is sometimes staggeringly brutal.

On May 22, a court in Hanover heard how a 39-year-old Turkish-born Kurd named Nurettin B. attempted to murder his second wife, Kader K., 28, after she asked him to provide financial support for their two-year-old son. State Prosecutor Ann-Kristin Fröhlich reconstructed Nurettin B."s actions:

"At around 6PM on November 20, 2016, Nurettin B. got into his car in Hamelin to meet Kader K. The trunk contained a knife, an ax and a rope. Sitting on the back seat of the car was their two-year-old son, who had spent the weekend with him. On the street, the former couple got into an argument and he begins hitting her. Then he takes the knife and plunges it into her chest. The 12.4 centimeter long blade penetrates the pericardium and heart muscle. A second stab opens the left abdominal cavity. Nurettin B. then pulls out the ax. With the blunt side he hits her head and upper body, cracking her skull.

"Then he grabs the rope. On one end he ties a gibbet knot around her neck, then he ties the other end to the trailer hitch on the back of his black VW Passat. Nurettin B. steps on the gas. He races through the streets at 80 km/h (50 mph). After 208 meters (680 feet) the rope breaks. Kader K. is hurled against the curb. Nurettin B. drives to the police station to turn himself in. The child is still sitting in the back seat."

Presiding Judge Wolfgang Rosenbusch asked Kader K., who was comatose for weeks, to tell her side of the story. She said "the horror" began immediately after their Islamic sharia wedding (the marriage is not valid according to German law) in March 2013, when Nurettin B. prohibited her from having any contact with friends and family. She was allowed to leave the house only for grocery shopping and medical visits. She was not allowed to have a mobile phone. Rosenbusch asked: "Does he have a problem with women?" Kader K. replied: "He believes women are slaves; they must keep silent."

Nurettin B. has confessed to the crime but insists it was not premeditated. He has been charged with attempted murder and faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

The picturesque town of Hamelin, Germany was the scene of horrific honor violence, when a Turkish-born Kurd named Nurettin B. attempted to murder one of his three wives. (Image source: Martin Möller/Wikimedia Commons)

On May 9, a court in Kiel sentenced 35-year-old Turkish man to two-and-a-half years in prison for shooting his estranged wife in both knees and permanently laming her, in the hope that she would be unattractive to other men. The court heard how the man took his wife to the back of a local mosque after Friday prayers, accused her of offending his honor and shot her, saying: "Now you can no longer walk. You will stay at home."

In court, however, the woman, possibly under pressure from her family or the mosque, told the court that they couple had reconciled and would attend marriage counselling. Some observers surmised that the dispute may have been resolved in a sharia court. In any event, the German court allowed the man to return home with his wife and it remains unclear if and when he will serve his sentence.

In Münster, a court sentenced a 36-year-old Lebanese man named Amer K. to 12 years in prison for stabbing his wife to death. The court heard how Amer K. stabbed 26-year-old Fatima S., the mother of his three children, in the chest and neck more than twenty times with a large kitchen knife because he thought she wanted to divorce him.

Meanwhile, a court in Hanau sentenced a 22-year-old Syrian refugee to twelve years in prison for stabbing to death his 30-year-old sister, Ramia A., with a kitchen knife. She was 23 weeks pregnant and was accused of having brought shame to her family. Her unborn child also died in the attack.

The true scale of Germany"s honor crime problem is unknown: many such crimes go unreported and reliable statistics do not exist. Empirical evidence indicates that honor violence — primarily but not exclusively the product of Muslim culture and Islamic law, sharia — has metastasized since Chancellor Angela Merkel allowed in some two million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

In March 2011, the Max Planck Institute published a landmark study on honor killings. The study analyzed all such crimes known to have occurred in Germany between 1996 and 2005. The report found that there were two honor killings in 1998 and 12 in 2004. By 2016, however, the number had jumped to more than 60, an increase of 400%, according to the website Ehrenmord.

The actual number of honor crimes presumably is much higher. Increased censorship by the police and the media, aimed at stemming anti-immigration sentiments, makes it impossible to know the names and national origins of many victims or perpetrators, or the true circumstances surrounding many murders, which often appear to be honor killings but are downplayed as "domestic disputes" (Familienangelegenheiten).

2017 is nevertheless on track to be a record year for honor violence in Germany; in the first five months of this year, there have been at least 30 honor killings, including the following:

May 18. In Berlin, a 32-year-old Bosnian, Edin A., murdered his former girlfriend, a 35-year-old German woman named Michelle E., after she ended their abusive relationship. He also abducted and tortured her 12-year-old son, who was forced to watch his mother"s murder. Neighbors said they had repeatedly alerted the police about Edin A."s violent behavior, but the police did nothing.

May 17. In Pforzheim, a 53-year-old Tajik man stabbed to death his 50-year-old wife at her place of employment, a Christian daycare center. It remains unclear if the woman was a convert to Christianity.

May 17. In Wardenburg, a 37-year-old Iraqi man stabbed to death his 37-year-old wife while she was asleep in her bed. The couple"s five children, between the ages of four and 15, were at home at the time of the murder and are now living with relatives.

May 8. In Neuendettelsau, a 24-year-old Ethiopian asylum seeker, Mohammed G., stabbed his 22-year-old girlfriend in the stomach at a restaurant after she allegedly "provoked" him. The woman was five months pregnant; the unborn baby died in the attack.

May 4. In Freiburg, a 33-year-old Syrian asylum seeker stabbed his 24-year-old wife, a Kurdish Christian who had moved out of the couple"s apartment, but had returned to collect some personal belongings. The couple"s three children — aged six, three and ten months — are now in protective custody.

April 29. In Prien am Chiemsee, a 29-year-old Afghan man stabbed to death a 38-year-old Afghan woman, Farima S., who had converted to Christianity. The attacker ambushed the woman as she was exiting a grocery store with her two children.

April 23. In Syke, a 32-year-old Iraqi man, Murad B., strangled his 32-year-old wife, Mehe K., in front of the couple"s three children, ages one, two and nine.

April 23. In Dresden, a 29-year-old Pakistani refugee, Shahajan Butt, murdered his girlfriend, a 41-year-old Vietnamese woman named Thu T. Police say the man, who arrived in Germany in December 2015, became enraged after he noticed that the woman had not posted any photos of him on her Facebook page, and suspected that she may have had another boyfriend.

April 16. In Mainz-Finthen, a 39-year-old Egyptian asylum seeker stabbed to death his 32-year-old wife. Police said the couple had been arguing at the time of the attack. Their two children are being held in protective custody.

April 5. In Leipzig, a 34-year-old Syrian man stabbed his 28-year-old wife because she wanted a divorce. The couple"s two children witnessed the attack; they are being held in protective custody.

March 31. In Gütersloh, a 43-year-old Syrian man burned his 18-year-old daughter with a cigarette and threatened to kill her. When the police intervened, the father refused to allow his daughter to leave the house. After police succeeded in bringing the girl to safety, the father and son attacked the police, who used pepper-spray to fend them off. The girl is being held in protective custody.

March 15. In Kiel, a 40-year-old German-Turkish man stabbed to death his 34-year-old Turkish wife in front of a daycare center. Neighbors said the couple, who were separated, had quarreled about moving their three children to Turkey.

March 4. In Duisburg, a 30-year-old Syrian asylum seeker, Mahmood Mahrusseh, stabbed his 32-year-old ex-girlfriend. The woman survived; her attacker remains at large.

March 3. In Mönchengladbach, a 32-year-old asylum seeker, Ahmed Salim, murdered a 47-year-old German woman, Nicole M., apparently after she ended a relationship with him. The man, who also uses the alias Jamal Amilia, was arrested in Spain. In his asylum application, he had written that he was from Israel. In another asylum application filed in another country, he had written that he was from Morocco. He is believed to be from Iraq.

March 2. In Scheeßel, a 42-year-old Iraqi man stabbed to death his 52-year-old wife, also from Iraq. Police described the murder as an honor killing. The couple"s children are now in protective custody.

February 25. In Euskirchen, a 32-year-old German-Turkish man stabbed to death his former girlfriend, a 32-year-old German woman who had begun dating someone else.

February 17. In Offenbach, a 32-year-old Turkish man, Volkan T., shot to death his former girlfriend, a 40-year-old woman, Silvia B. The man said he was angry that the woman, who had two children, had ended her relationship with him.

February 15. In Bielefeld, a 51-year-old Iraqi man tried to murder his 51-year-old wife by attacking her with a hammer while she was attending a German class at a local language academy. The man was apparently angry that his wife was mixing with other language students.

February 10. In Ahaus, a 27-year-old Nigerian asylum seeker stabbed to death a 22-year-old woman after she seemingly offended his honor by rejecting his romantic advances. The woman, a Hindu, was employed at the same asylum shelter where her attacker lived. He was arrested in Basel, Switzerland.

February 7. In Hanover-Mühlenberg, a 21-year-old Serbian man stabbed his ex-girlfriend after she ended their relationship and had begun dating someone else.

February 1. In Hamburg, a 26-year-old Afghan man stabbed his estranged 28-year-old wife during an argument; she survived the attack.

January 15. In Bremen-Vegesack, a 39-year-old Turkish man murdered his 40-year-old Syrian wife, who was nine months pregnant, because she wanted to divorce him. The unborn baby also died during the attack.

January 5. In Waldshut-Tiengen, a 47-year-old Turkish man stabbed his estranged wife as she was walking with a friend. When she tried to run away, he pursued her and plunged a knife in her back.

January 4. In Köln-Buchheim, a 44-year-old Iraqi man murdered his 19-year-old daughter because he did not approve of her boyfriend. Two days later, he called police. "I killed my daughter," he said. The man may never face justice; he is believed to have fled to Iraq.

Monopolies Are Caused by Government, Not Technology, and Should be Removed by the Courts

Via The Daily Bell

Monopolies Are Worse Than We Thought ... Economists are increasingly turning their attention to the problem of monopoly. This doesn’t mean literal monopoly, like when one utility company provides all the power in a city. It refers to market concentration in general -- when an industry goes from having 20 players to having only 10, or when the four biggest companies in an industry start taking a bigger and bigger share of sales. This sort of creeping oligopoly acts much like a literal monopoly -- it raises prices, limits market size and tends to make the economy less efficient. - Bloomberg

Market concentration hurts workers according to this article. It"s true, but makes no distinction between voluntary monopolies and imposed monopolies.

In some cases, monopolies are valuable and adopted voluntarily. For instance, light bulbs are standardized. This is a form of voluntary monopoly and customers do not react against it from what we can tell.

Then there"s the Federal Reserve, which has been given the power to regulate and print money.

The Fed is a government monopoly with all the negatives we associate with this kind of monopoly. It runs money for the sake of a handful of people and not for the larger good.

Additionally, the idea that the Fed could run money and regulate banks for the larger good is suspect anyway. It is not going to turn into an eleemosynary institution just because it has the ability to exercise a monopoly.

More:

I suspect that creeping monopoly will prove to be one of the main reasons for decreasing business dynamism. And it could even be a contributor to slow productivity growth.

In other words, many of the diseases in our economy can probably be traced, at least in part, to the problem of market concentration. In a previous post, I mentioned a couple of potential causes. The obvious culprit would be a more lax attitude toward antitrust enforcement.

If free-market fundamentalism caused the U.S. to be friendlier toward big mergers since the 1990s, this could have encouraged concentration. One problem with this story is that antitrust fines have actually been on the rise: Regulation can increase monopoly power by raising barriers to entry.

Even within a couple of grafs the author says two contradictory things. First he says the antitrust enforcement has made monopolies more common. Then he says that antitrust fines have been on the rise but that they too can encourage monopolies by creating barriers to entry.

The article says that if regulation is the main reason for monopolies than he will have to become "much more libertarian." In fact it is already established that regulation is a main cause of monopolies.

However, the article doesn"t see it this way. Modern regulatory trends, he declares, have only been around since about 2000. Therefore blaming regulation for monopolies must not be true.

Additionally, the article mentions a recent paper claiming that a few "superstar" companies in various fields have naturally emerged as quasi-monopolies. Modern technology may simply have change the way companies relate to each other and to the market. "Those companies could simply be out-competing their rivals."

Yet a third reason could be because technology has broadened competition and top brands are now far more ubiquitous. Big corporations can now more easily push out smaller ones.

Probably none of this is true. What builds big corporations with monopoly tendencies is what we have been saying all along: Monopoly force exercised through the court system, and by the legislature.

Remove intellectual property rights and corporate person-hood and you would go a long ways to naturally reducing the overly large size of corporations.

If technology is the culprit, then the problem will be complex indeed. But technology is not the culprit. America"s judicial system and legislature has created the problem and can solve it in large part by walking back a few of decisions.

Of course the chance of this are fairly minimal. The current system only makes thing more complicated over time.

Conclusion: But if the court at the federal level could be compelled to reexamine its decisions and then to change them, the US would become a much better place. Involuntary monopolies would become far fewer. And that would help everyone.

Bankruptcy Asset Hunters Confirm What Most Of Us Already Knew: Everyone Lies On Social Media

Earlier this year Curtis Jackson III (aka "50 Cent") raised some concerns with his bankruptcy judge, Ann Nevins, after he posted a couple of ill-advised pictures on Instragram of himself posing with $100,000s of dollars worth of cash.  Apparently Chapter 7 trustees frown upon omitting "buckets of cash" from your official bankruptcy disclosures and then subsequently posing with that cash on social media.  But, after being ordered to appear in court to explain the pictures, an embarrassed 50 Cent was forced to admit that the cash was fake.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, chapter 7 trustees all around the country are finding out that "fiddy" isn"t the bankrupt person "frontin" on social media. 

This October, when Ido Alexander saw photos a young man had posted on social media, he thought he had hit the bankruptcy jackpot.

Mr. Alexander, a Florida lawyer working for a court-appointed trustee, dispatched an appraiser to the man’s home to inspect the expensive-looking gold chains and other jewelry he had been posing in, which he hadn’t declared as assets in court filings.

The appraiser made another discovery that is becoming all too common in the age of social-media braggadocio. “At the end of the day, it was really costume jewelry,” Mr. Alexander says. “It was really disappointing.”

The industry’s detectives—lawyers and accountants who serve as chapter 7 bankruptcy trustees—are learning what most teenagers have already figured out, which is that you can’t always believe what you see on Facebook and Twitter. “Gotcha” moments in which they discover people in bankruptcy posing in glamorous-looking jewelry, piloting boats and ATVs and even displaying buckets full of cash have fallen flat as the items turn out to be fake, or not theirs at all.

Of course, some people are dumb enough to actually hide real assets from the bankruptcy court which rarely works out all that well.  Just ask Gregory Sipe of Virginia who decided to omit nearly $1 million worth of vintage guitars from his asset disclosures and earned himself five months of house arrest and nice little fine to boot.

Trustees say efforts to hide assets don’t happen often, but nevertheless have been going on for years. An Oklahoma man who filed for bankruptcy in 2005 failed to turn over profits from his ownership stake in a television show, the court ruled. The name of the show: “Cheaters.”

Tipped off by a creditor, North Carolina bankruptcy trustee John Bircher III, ran an online search on a Chesapeake, Va., businessman and found a newspaper article about his collection of 250 guitars. The man, Gregory Sipe, had only listed “several collectible guitars” worth $10,000 in his August 2010 bankruptcy filing.

When Mr. Bircher paid Mr. Sipe a visit, he recalls, he discovered a garage full of vintage guitars that later sold for almost $900,000. Lawyer Raymond Tarlton, who represented Mr. Sipe, said his client didn’t disclose the guitars because he thought he could fully pay his debts without selling them.

Mr. Sipe pleaded guilty, was sentenced to five months of house arrest and had to pay $5,900 for falsifying court records.

Who knew that people sensationalize their lives on social media?  We thought we were the last remaining miserable people on the planet...this is a good news day.

How We Become Slaves Of "The System"

Submitted by Bob Livingston via PersonalLiberty.com,

Almost everything you think and do is against your best interest and you don’t even realize it. It’s planned that way.

The state seeks absolute control of your mind, body and spirit. Can the state succeed? It has, but only a precious few ever know.

Your mind and your thoughts are not your own. Almost every thought you have channels you toward the state.

By the time a child grows up and goes through the public (non)education system, he or she has no thoughts of his or her own. By the time that person is finished with college, the system has sealed his or her thought processes so that nothing is questioned. The imperative to inquire beyond what comes from the propaganda media and our leaders is gone.

Our minds are so smug in darkness and organized confusion that we are complete automatons. Our ego, our individuality, is completely excised and we are completely transferred into the state organism and group thought. Any deviation from the system by anyone is met with hostility by friends and neighbors.

By this we become locked into a system based only on conventional wisdom.  Conventional wisdom is what everybody knows. It is the court history (faux history) we receive in school and through the controlled media, repeated ad nauseum.

Conventional wisdom is based on confusion and disinformation. It has a crowding-out effect in our thought processes that stifles inquiry. In other words, conventional wisdom programs us to reject any information or thought not in harmony with our preconditioning and experience. It is called cognitive dissonance.

The more one is formally educated, the more he/she is locked into the system mindset.  (Why do you think there is such a push for everyone to receive a college education whether a person is so inclined or not?)

I myself went through four years of college, worked on a master’s degree, and attended law school. What a pity! It took valuable time and money for me to pay for the brainwash. It took years to get over it. I had to completely erase this education foolishness before I could begin to have half sense. My inquiring attitude and much, much reading helped me escape the programmed maze that entrapped me. The many conflicts and confusion was emotionally and financially costly.

Not even your body is your own.

A brand new baby gets vaccinations before it leaves the hospital and the parents are glad. They don’t question what’s in the vaccines or what they’re for.

There’s even now a push to begin vaccinating babies in the womb. As it is, the state begins to seize an infant’s body the first day of its life. It is being prepared for death the day it is born. Then as many as 50 more vaccinations come before the end of high school. All is done in the name of health and for the good of society. It’s all for profit of the giant pharmaceuticals enforced by the political system. The parents believe that it’s good.

There are many knowledgeable people who are against compulsory vaccinations simply because it is a violation of medical freedom. But the problem goes much deeper. It is at the heart of the survival of the system.

Then there is an organized system of sickness called healthcare. This system must have an endless supply of bodies — yours.

Thousands of tests, biopsies, sonograms, catheterizations, etc., etc., leading to making huge profits through drugs, surgery, radiation, etc., leading to the general demise of the natural immune system guaranteeing sickness and death — yours.

Individual responsibility for one’s own health in America is unthinkable and almost nonexistent. It was so planned. They need and want your body. It is huge profits for the system.

Beyond that, vaccines and the sickness care system are about a population control system based on the cold reality of the survival of the money (credit) creation monopoly that rules the world. Consumers will and must die. The push for universal vaccinations is not ideological fantasy. It is cold-blooded conspiracy to control population. California has mandatory vaccination and has eliminated both the religious and philosophical exemption. As California goes, so goes the nation.

When you understand the money system you will know for certain why population control has now changed from an urgency to a priority of the establishment.

Those of you new to Personal Liberty^® and reading some of these things for the first time may be shocked and asking, “What do vaccines, healthcare, the money system and population control have in common?”

In a few words, money creation (money creation is credit creation) is the exclusive monopoly of the central bank. In the U.S., this is the Federal Reserve and Federal Reserve banks.

All wealth flows to the creators of credit. But a credit creation monetary system cannot exist without regulation. Regulation is absolutely essential in all areas of life. In America, do we have regulation? In spades.

Specific for this discussion is the subject of population regulation or population control. A credit-based monetary system will break down if it gets more consumers than producers. As our population gets older and “top heavy,” consumption exceeds production and, through welfare and social security payments, wealth reverses from the money (credit) creators to the consumers or nonproducers. This cannot be allowed over time.

Therefore ways — benevolent ways of course, as they cannot just vaporize you when you reach a certain age, a la “Logan’s Run”  — must be found to get us to expire when we retire. We have many population control mechanisms in place, including mass medication with drugs and fluoride in our drinking water.

And one of the most sinister and disguised population controls in place is mass inoculations and vaccinations. When our children are vaccinated, there is a certain percentage who die as a result, and many are disabled in various ways for life. However, the most insidious part of it is the development of degenerative diseases much later in life, say about in the 50s and early 60s, at about retirement age.

Human liberty and personal survival in our time must originate in truth no matter how incredible and shocking to our conditioned minds. Governments control the public mind with disinformation and confusion. No modern government could exist for 24 hours if it told the people the truth.

Of course, the establishment news will label these truths as “fake news.” Most of the readers — due to cognitive dissonance — will label this as “conspiracy theory.”

Both are code words designed to make you and keep you as slaves to “The System.”