(NaturalNews) Former newspaper journalist and bestselling conspiracy author Jim Marrs told radio talk show host Dave Hodges in December that some 400-500 top bank executives had left their positions and had gone into seclusion.

Marrs said at the time that the elite had fallback positions from a chaotic society: seed vaults to which only they had access.

"Marrs was clearly alluding to the fact that some very bad events are coming and the global elite are aware of it and are moving to meet the threat," Hodges wrote on his radio show website.

Hodges went on to say his sources tell him that the same thing is occurring with people who have recently retired from a number of federal agencies including the CIA, DHS, NSA and FEMA.

"This fact is indisputable," Hodges wrote. "I have firsthand knowledge of four ex-Fed officials and their families who have relocated to safety enclaves when doing so was very disruptive to their respective [families'] lives." He said that "increasingly," it appears as though major events are coming -- life- and history-changing events that have these folks seeking "to remove themselves from harm's way."

Top DHS positions vacant; morale low

Hodges further stated:

When government officials, from the various alphabet soup agencies, retire en masse, it is not necessarily a noteworthy event. However, when the same officials retire en masse and then relocate to form their own survivalist enclaves, then this is something that we should all sit up and take notice of, especially when we are seeing the same behavior on the part of Wall Street executives.

Only, it is a newsworthy event; no less than The Washington Post reported recently that several top positions at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are currently vacant, and morale is extremely poor.

"The Department's Web site shows 40 percent of positions on the DHS's leadership list are filled by 'acting' officials or are vacant -- including the top four slots," the Post reported.

In a separate story, the Post also reported in August 2013 that a wave of retirements from the federal workforce were taking place -- a phenomenon that the paper blamed largely on age (many of those retiring were 60 or older). But the report also said that a number of very skilled workers were leaving federal service -- and the more skilled tend to be better paid (and, hence, better able to feather a distant nest).

Home to NORAD, NORTHCOM

As for Hodges, he says he has recently been having conversations with a pair of insiders, as well as the relative of another insider, "who tell similar stories of a coming series of apocalyptic events."

He also wrote that it is "a matter of official agency policy" that some of the current DHS and CIA officials and their families will be given safe haven in various locations in Colorado, in turbulent times (Colorado is home to several vital military bases -- one Army and five Air Force bases, all near the vicinity of Colorado Springs; the area is also home to Cheyenne Mountain, home of the North American Aerospace Command, or NORAD, the nation's early-warning center, and NORTHCOM, or Northern Command, the Army command in charge of homeland security and response).

"Most people in the know are aware of the underground facilities which lie below the Denver International Airport which has an underground connected railway to the Cheyenne Mountain NORAD/Fort Carson/Peterson Air Force Base underground facilities," Hodges wrote. "The structures are part of the Continuity of Government program developed by the United States government in the early days of the Cold War. However these facilities are increasingly becoming the planned refuge for many of the global elite residing within the United States when all hell breaks loose."

Read Hodges' entire report here.


Sources:

http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com

http://militarybases.com

Saudi Arabia already has nukes, Iran probably does, and the Russians are one of the two great nuclear powers on the entire planet. So if Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their Sunni allies do decide to conduct a full-blown ground invasion of Syria, could someone ultimately decide to use nuclear weapons when their backs get pushed up against a wall? As you read this article, there are thousands of military vehicles and hundreds of thousands of troops massed along the southern border of Turkey and the northern border of Saudi Arabia. If the command is given and those forces start streaming toward Damascus, it is inevitable that the Syrians, the Iranians, Hezbollah and the Russians would fight back. It would literally be the start of World War 3, and the Saudis and the Turks are trying very hard to convince the United States to be involved. But the truth is that we don’t want any part of this conflict, because it could very easily become the very first nuclear war in the history of the Middle East.

Perhaps you didn’t know that the Saudis already have nukes. Of course the official position is that they don’t, but it is a fact that they were the ones that funded the development of Pakistan’s nuclear program. It is an open secret that the Saudis have the bomb, but nobody is really supposed to talk about it.

That is why it was so alarming what Saudi political analyst Dahham Al-‘Anzi told RT just recently…

Earlier this week a Saudi political analyst told RT’s Arab network the kingdom has a nuclear weapon.

Dahham Al-‘Anzi made the claim while saying Saudi Arabia is engaged in an effort to “minimize the Iranian threat in the Levant and Syria.”

Although Saudi Arabia has officially denied it has a nuclear weapons program and has publicly stated it opposes nuclear weapons in the Middle East, it has funded a military nuclear program and received scientific assistance from the United States and Pakistan.

You can watch video of this exchange right here…

Let’s hope not.

In the event of a massive ground invasion by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and their allies, it is actually more likely that Russia may decide to be the first one to use nukes. An invasion force of hundreds of thousands of troops would vastly outnumber the relatively small Russian force that is already inside Syria, and so the Russians may feel that the only way that they can keep the Sunni powers out of Damascus is to use tactical nukes.

Russia has more tactical nukes that anyone else in the world by far, and there are some reports that indicate that Russia may be prepared to use them in Syria. For example, former Associated Press reporter Robert Parry, the author of America’s Stolen Narrative, says that a source has told him that the Russians have already warned Turkey that this could potentially happen…

If Turkey (with hundreds of thousands of troops massed near the Syrian border) and Saudi Arabia (with its sophisticated air force) follow through on threats and intervene militarily to save their rebel clients, who include Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front, from a powerful Russian-backed Syrian government offensive, then Russia will have to decide what to do to protect its 20,000 or so military personnel inside Syria.

A source close to Russian President Vladimir Putin told me that the Russians have warned Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Moscow is prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons if necessary to save their troops in the face of a Turkish-Saudi onslaught. Since Turkey is a member of NATO, any such conflict could quickly escalate into a full-scale nuclear confrontation.

Given Erdogan’s megalomania or mental instability and the aggressiveness and inexperience of Saudi Prince Mohammad bin Salman (defense minister and son of King Salman), the only person who probably can stop a Turkish-Saudi invasion is President Obama. But I’m told that he has been unwilling to flatly prohibit such an intervention, though he has sought to calm Erdogan down and made clear that the U.S. military would not join the invasion.

Are you starting to understand how serious this is?

With all of the talk of a potential invasion in recent days, the Russians are on high alert and are rapidly preparing for a direct conflict with both Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The following comes from Infowars…

Still, the Russians are taking no chances and they have put all their forces into high alert. They have very publicly dispatched a Tu-214r – her most advanced ISR (Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance) aircraft. You can think of the Tu-214R as an “AWACS for the ground”, the kind of aircraft you use to monitor a major ground battle (the regular Russian A-50Ms are already monitoring the Syrian airspace). In southern Russia, the Aerospace forces have organized large-scale exercises involving a large number of aircraft which would be used in a war against Turkey: SU-34s. The Airborne Forces are ready. The naval task forces off the Syrian coast is being augmented. The delivery of weapons has accelerated. The bottom line is simple and obvious: the Russians are not making any threats – they are preparing for war. In fact, by now they are ready.

In addition, it is important to remember that it is quite likely that the Iranians have nuclear weapons as well.

Of course the U.S. government and the Iranian government both insist that Iran does not have nukes, but many of those in the know insist otherwise.

For instance, you may want to consider what retired U.S. Army Major General Paul Vallely and U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Dennis B. Haney are saying. The following comes from an article that was authored by Jerome Corsi of WND…

In a joint statement, Vallely and Haney say an accumulation of available evidence shows a coalition of Russia, China and North Korea have assisted Iran since 1979 in achieving a nuclear weapon, despite sanctions, under the guise of a domestic nuclear energy program.

Vallely explained to WND that he and Haney have taken a systematic approach to evaluating each component needed to deliver a nuclear weapon, from the development and testing of a ballistic missile system, to the design of a nuclear weapons warhead, to the development of the weapons-grade uranium needed to produce a bomb.

“To come to our conclusion that Iran is a nuclear weapons power right now, we supplemented publicly available research, plus information from intelligence sources, including Iranian resistance groups such as the National Council of Resistance of IRAN, NCRI,” Vallely explained.

I happen to agree with Vallely and Haney. I cannot prove it, but all of the intel that I have received indicates that Iran already has nukes.

Hopefully I will not be proven accurate any time soon.

It had been hoped that a cease-fire could be negotiated that would at least temporarily defuse tensions in Syria. Unfortunately, it does not look like the shooting is going to stop, and this is going to put immense pressure on both Saudi Arabia and Turkey to do something to rescue the radical Sunni militants that are on the verge of defeat. The Saudis, the Turks and their allies have poured enormous amounts of money and resources into this war over the past five years, and now they are faced with the choice of either accepting defeat or directly intervening in this conflict themselves.

But in order to conduct a full-fledged ground invasion, they are going to need justification for doing so. There are some that are suggesting that we could soon see a false flag attack that would provide that justification, so that is something to watch out for.

I can’t remember a time when our planet has been so close to World War 3 potentially beginning.

And if it does break out, I believe that it is quite likely that nuclear weapons will be used.

So what do you think?

Do you agree with me?

Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below…


(The Economic Collapse)

Dale Oxley doesn’t need to hear about rising odds of a U.S. recession to dread the future. For the West Virginia homebuilder, the downturn has already arrived.

“Everyone is going to have to tighten their belts,” said Oxley, the 48-year-old owner of a Charleston-area construction company. “The next couple of years are going to be difficult.”

As economists size up the chances of the first nationwide slump since 2009, pockets of the country are already contracting. Four states -- Alaska, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wyoming -- are in a recession, and three others are at risk of prolonged declines, according to indexes of state economic performance tracked by Moody’s Analytics.

The regions suffering the most are in the flop stage of the energy industry’s boom-to-bust cycle, and manufacturing-dependent areas hurt by a rising dollar are at risk of receding. Whether the weak links break the entire U.S. economy will hinge largely on a group that’s benefited from the energy price collapse: American consumers.

“The impetus for weakening regional economies is the huge fall in energy prices and other commodities prices, which is taking a tremendous toll,” said Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. in New York, who is concerned of a broadening into a national recession. “If the consumer were to falter for any reason, that would be a big problem.”

Job gains and losses are key factors that the National Bureau of Economic Research uses to chart U.S. expansions and recessions. Even as U.S. employers added 2.7 million workers in 2015, job cuts last year totaled 18,800 in North Dakota, 11,800 in West Virginia and 6,400 in Wyoming, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

The common thread? They all have concentrations of energy companies. A 72 percent plunge in crude oil prices since a peak in June 2014 has led to lower production and firings.

“There would seem to be increased fears of recession risk” reflected in tightening financial conditions, she said in her testimony. “We’ve not yet seen a sharp drop-off in growth, either globally or the United States, but we certainly recognize that global market developments bear close watching.”

Still, seven of the 50 U.S. states have had downturns in economic activity over the final three months of last year, according to tracking by the Philadelphia Fed.

Louisiana, New Mexico and Oklahoma are all at risk of recession, according to Moody’s. Wyoming and North Dakota’s economies have declined for at least the past 10 months, according to the Philadelphia Fed.

The median probability for a U.S. recession in the next 12 months jumped to 20 percent in a Bloomberg survey of economists this month, the highest since February 2013.

Dollar’s Strength

A second blow to regional economies is the dollar’s surge, reflected in a 22 percent increase in the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index since mid-2014, which is weighing on U.S. producers that compete globally. Illinois, Wisconsin, Louisiana and Mississippi --manufacturing states hurt by the currency’s march higher -- have all had economic declines in the past few months.

The spottiness of the expansion represents a turnaround from the broad recovery after the deepest downturn since the 1930s. As recently as October 2014, every state was expanding, according to Paul Flora, an economist with the Philadelphia Fed.

For every 25 percent drop in oil prices, employment could be expected to decline 0.6 percent in Texas and 0.8 percent in Louisiana, while Wyoming stands to lose 2.1 percent of its jobs and North Dakota and Oklahoma about 1 percent each, according to research by Stephen Brown, an economist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Mine Yücel, director of research at the Dallas Fed.

Growth in Texas has slowed with falling oil prices, though the state continues to expand because of a diversified economy including technology jobs in Austin and development in Dallas. Texas added 166,900 jobs in the year ended in December, behind only California and Florida.

The situation today echoes what happened three decades ago, when falling commodities prices caused regional pockets of distress in energy and farm states, Flora said. “This seems similar to 1985-86 which did produce a recession in Texas and other energy states,” he said. “But it did not spread to the rest of the nation.”

“We’re taking account of the fact that the energy sector is very hard hit. We’re losing jobs there,” Yellen said Feb. 10. “But with respect to employment, although there really are very severe losses, it’s a pretty small sector of the work force overall.”

That’s cold comfort in places like Kimball, West Virginia, where the setbacks include the closing of a Wal-Mart store. “We are experiencing stagnation overall in the rest of the economy,” said John Deskins, an economist at West Virginia University in Morgantown.

Oxley, the builder, said his company’s business has held up more than most in part because he serves wealthier customers, including doctors, who continue doing well. Still, recession conditions are dampening everyone’s confidence.

Oxley’s Modern Home Concepts built four $500,000 custom homes last year in southern West Virginia, down from five in 2014 and fewer than half 2009’s level, when the last U.S. recession ended. About 200 people are employed on contract for each home, he said.

Associated Press Videos
US, Russia Agree on Syria Cease-Fire Plan

ISIS and US-Backed 'Moderate' Rebels Join Forces, Attack Syrian Army in Southeastern Aleppo

Do the 'moderates' also drive brand new Toyotas?

Leith Fadel, editor-in-chief of Al Masdar News, is reporting that "moderate" rebels (funded and armed by the United States and its Arab client states) are now fighting alongside ISIS in an attempt to push the Syrian army out of Southeastern Aleppo.

ISIS and the Islamist rebels share control over the small village of Rasm Al-Nafal, along with 2 other points on the Khanasser-Aleppo Road that they captured in a simultaneous assault on the National Defense Forces (NDF) last night.

Both the Islamist rebels and ISIS announced that they control Rasm Al-Nafal and they have yet to attack one another; instead, they are assaulting the Syrian Armed Forces, who just sent fresh reinforcements to this front in order to recapture the points they lost along this road.

And just to remind our readers, the Free Syrian Army is openly supported by the United States:

Some of the most powerful FSA groups have received military support from the United States. These groups have been regularly targeted in the Russian aerial campaign that got underway in support of Assad on Sept. 30, and have reiterated denials of receiving any help from Moscow.

Are we going to continue to pretend that NATO isn't funding terrorism in Syria?

Follow Leith Abou Fadel ‎@leithfadel ISIS and the rebels are attacking the Syrian Arab Army together in southeastern Aleppo. I knew this day would come..https://twitter.com/thearabsource/status/701711813876912128 … 5:18 AM - 22 Feb 2016 122122 Retweets 4343 likes

Your tax dollars hard at work:

[T]he Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) is attacking the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in southeastern Aleppo; however, they are not alone, thanks in large part to the joint effort from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Jund Al-Aqsa (Syrian Al-Qaeda group).