4124-ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? | View Thread

North Korea Claims Success in Long-Range Missile Test

A photograph released by North Korea’s official news agency on Tuesday that is said to show the intercontinental ballistic missile being launched.

KCNA, via European Pressphoto Agency

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Tuesday that it had successfully conducted its first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, claiming a milestone in its efforts to build nuclear weapons capable of hitting the mainland United States.

The announcement came hours after a launch that the United States military said had sent the missile aloft for 37 minutes. That duration, analysts said, suggested a significant improvement in the range of the North’s missiles, and it might allow one to travel as far as 4,000 miles and hit Alaska.

In an initial statement, the United States Pacific Command described the weapon as an intermediate-range missile rather than an intercontinental ballistic missile. But South Korean and Japanese officials said they were studying the data to determine if it was an ICBM.

The missile departed the Banghyon airfield in the northwestern town of Kusong and flew 578 miles before landing in the sea between North Korea and Japan, the South Korean military said in a statement.

The Japanese government said the missile landed in its so-called exclusive economic zone off its western coast. Under a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions, North Korea is prohibited from developing or testing ballistic missiles.

While the North has made significant progress in its weapons programs, experts believe it cannot make nuclear warheads small enough to be mounted on ICBMs. Still, American policy makers have long seen just the development of an ICBM as a critical threshold the North should not be allowed to cross.

The missile test adds a volatile new element to the Trump administration’s efforts to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, which have included naval drills off the Korean Peninsula and pressure on China, Pyongyang’s longtime ally. In a blunt phone call on Sunday, President Trump warned President Xi Jinping of China that the United States was prepared to act alone against North Korea.

If the missile took 37 minutes to fly 578 miles, that would mean that it had a highly lofted trajectory, probably reaching an altitude of more than 1,700 miles, said David Wright, co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Such a missile would have a maximum range of roughly 4,160 miles, or 6,700 kilometers, on a standard trajectory, he said. North Korea said the missile, which it identified as the Hwasong-14, flew for 39 minutes.

“That range would not be enough to reach the lower 48 states or the large islands of Hawaii, but would allow it to reach all of Alaska,” Mr. Wrightwrote in a blog post.

The missile looked like the longest-range missile that North Korea had ever tested, and its long flight time was “more consistent with an ICBM that can target Alaska and perhaps Hawaii,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

“It’s a very big deal — it looks like North Korea tested an ICBM,” he said by email. “Even if this is a 7,000-km-range missile, a 10,000-km-range missile that can hit New York isn’t far off.”

But analysts also cautioned that although they have been impressed by the rapid and steady progress in the North’s missile programs, the long flight time itself did not suggest that North Korea had mastered the complex technologies needed to build a reliable nuclear-tipped ICBM, such as the know-how to separate the nuclear warhead and guide it to its target.

By lofting some of its recent missiles to higher altitudes and letting them crash down toward the earth at greater speeds, North Korea has claimed that it tested its “re-entry” technology, which can protect a nuclear warhead from intense heat and vibrations as it crashes through the atmosphere. But it is still unclear whether the North has successfully cleared that technological hurdle, missile experts said.

A photograph released by the North Korean news agency showing Kim Jong-un reacting after the launch. KCNA, via Reuters

Kim Dong-yub, a defense analyst at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul, said that the Hwasong-12, which the North tested in May, flew 489 miles in 30 minutes, soaring to an altitude of 1,312 miles. Such a missile could deliver a standard 1,430-pound nuclear warhead over a range of 2,800 miles, not enough to reach Hawaii and Alaska, as North Korea claimed at the time.

North Korea’s test on Tuesday may have been intended to prove that its missiles could reach Hawaii and Alaska, Mr. Kim said.

Early last year, North Korea defied United Nations resolutions by using a rocket to put a satellite into orbit, a move that many saw as a cover for developing an ICBM. Compared with that rocket, which was fired from a bulky space launcher, the missile tested on Tuesday appeared to use different fuel and a better engine, Mr. Lewis said. Photographs published by the North’s state news media indicated it was small enough to be transported by a truck.

North Korea announced the missile launch in a broadcast on state television after a series of patriotic music videos. “As a proud nuclear power that possesses not only nuclear weapons but also the most powerful ICBM that can target any part of the world, North Korea will root out the United States’ threat and blackmail of nuclear war and solidly defend the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the region,” the North Korean statement said.

North Korea called the test “a momentous event in the history of the country” and said it had brought “great joy” to North Koreans.

Before the announcement, Mr. Trump had noted the missile launch on Twitter, suggesting that it was time for China to act decisively against the North and “end this nonsense once and for all.” On Tuesday, Chinese officials criticized the missile test, saying it violated United Nations rules.

But at the same time, the Chinese government offered no signs that it was preparing to take more drastic action against the North, urging a return to diplomatic talks instead.

“I have to reiterate that the current situation in the Korean Peninsula is complicated and sensitive,” Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a regular news conference in Beijing. “We hope all sides concerned can remain calm and restrained so that tensions can be eased as soon as possible.”

Later in Moscow, where President Xi of China was visiting, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said both had agreed to advance a joint proposal to settle the Korea crisis by simultaneously freezing the North’s nuclear and missile programs and the joint military drills by the United States and South Korea. In remarks broadcast on Russian television, Mr. Putin called a solution proposed with China “a joint foreign-policy priority.”

Russia, which like China borders North Korea, has repeatedly called for a diplomatic solution. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned that the launch would give “more arguments to those who seek pretexts for new escalation of tensions,” according to the Interfax news agency.

Mr. Trump is to meet this week with both Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi at the Group of 20 meeting in Germany, and Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said the missile test would force them to find some kind of common ground on North Korea. He did not specify what that might be, but he suggested that it would now be more difficult for Mr. Xi to stand by Pyongyang.

“Certainly the test will change the game,” Mr. Cheng said. “The business-as-usual situation is over.”

Other analysts said the launch would put Mr. Trump’s administration in a precarious position, given that it had indicated that such a missile, capable of reaching parts of the United States, was a critical threshold. In January, Mr. Trump declared on Twitter “it won’t happen !”; the message set off a cascade of speculation on what exactly he meant.

“The important thing is that Donald Trump doesn’t let himself be backed into a corner and that he understands that there are long-term options to contain, constrain and deter the regime,” said Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington.

The United States had hoped North Korea would stop short of developing a long-range missile that could reach its shores, Mr. Mount said. Now, he said, the United States and its allies will have to compromise on any expectation that North Korea will ever give up its nuclear program, he added.

“Talks can’t proceed from the presumption of denuclearization,” he said. “And we can’t coerce North Korea back to the negotiating table to prevent them from crossing a threshold they have already crossed.”

____________

Reporting was contributed by Austin Ramzy and Jane Perlez from Hong Kong, Motoko Rich from Tokyo, Javier C. Hernández from Beijing, and Ivan Nechepurenko from Moscow.

(The New York Times)

Every year on July 4, Americans celebrate their "freedom" on Independence Day—the anniversary of the day the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and established the United States as an independent nation in 1776.

As Americans prepare to commemorate Independence Day in 2017—gathering together with friends and family to eat, drink and watch elaborate fireworks displays—they are blindly celebrating a false sense of freedom based on a list of liberties that are far from the current practices of the U.S. government.

Endless Taxes

When schoolchildren in the U.S. learn about the great American Revolution, they are taught about the important role taxes played in the decision to rebel against the British government. American colonists fought back against the unnecessary taxes and tariffs that seemed to increase by the year, and they took a stand against the heinous idea of "taxation without representation."

However, today the U.S. federal tax code is around 75,000 pages—so long that most of the politicians who have the authority to push for legal change to it, have never actually read it. In fact, the Washington Examiner reported in April 2016 that the current version of the federal tax code is more than 187 times longer than it was a century ago.

"Amazingly, in the first 26 years of the federal income tax, the tax code only grew from 400 to 504 pages. Even through President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, the tax code was well under 1,000 pages. Changes during World War II made the length of the tax code balloon to 8,200 pages. Most of the growth in the tax code came in the past 30 years, growing from 26,300 pages in 1984 to nearly three times that length today."

Mass Incarceration

When schoolchildren in the U.S. are taught about history, they are taught about the abolishment of slavery in the 1860s, followed by the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. They are taught that Americans finally learned how to appreciate all people, regardless of race. However, they are not taught about the forms of modern day slavery, in which race and poverty play an important role.

A study conducted by the Brennan Center of Justice at NYU School of Law in 2016 found that nearly 40 percent of the U.S. prison population—around 576,000 people—are behind bars with "no compelling public safety reason." More than 25 percent of prisoners—364,000 people—are serving prison sentences for nonviolent offenses.

Mass Surveillance

The peaceful transition of power is known as one of the cornerstones of American policy, and issues such as mass surveillance appear to transcend party lines. From President Bush signing the Patriot Act, to President Obama signing the USA Freedom Act, Americans have seen an ongoing loss of privacy rights in the 21st Century.

While President Trump has openly praised government surveillance, he wouldn't have his current ability to spy on innocent Americans, if it wasn't for the actions of his predecessors. Just days before he left office, Obama signed an executive order that gave the National Security Agency the authority to share the raw streams of the communications it intercepts from Americans directly with government agencies such as the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

EndlessWar

When British colonists arrived on American soil, they acted as if they were the first to ever discover the land, and appeared to have very little regard for the Native American people who were already inhabitants. The only "war" that was waged was for a land the American colonists chose to claim as their own—in many ways, that practice is still carried out today.

The concept of endless war is one that has been passed from one administration to the next in the U.S., with each new president adding to and intensifying the current ongoing conflicts. Instead of pursuing a conflict because the opposing country directly attacked the U.S., the true strategy revolves around what the U.S. can stand to gain from the country's natural resources, along with the factor of whether that country recently dropped the U.S. dollar.

While Donald Trump ran on a policy of not invading other countries, his sentiment quickly changed once he became the lead puppet for the military industrial complex.

As U.S. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin once said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

In 2017, the current status of the United States is one in which when it comes to the areas of taxes, war, and the police and surveillance state, the American public seems to have no regard for the police state they willingly submit to, all the while openly celebrating their "Freedom."

Desperate civilians flee last Islamic State pocket in Mosul

An elderly displaced Iraqi woman who fled from Islamic State militants carries a baby in Mosul, Iraq July 3, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

By Stephen Kalin | MOSUL, IRAQ

Shop-owner Adnan dragged himself from the rubble two days in a row after the houses he was sheltering in were bombed, one after the other, in the U.S.-led campaign to uproot the last Islamic State militants from Mosul.

"Daesh (Islamic State) forced us out of our home, so we moved to a relative's house nearby. Yesterday the house was bombed," he said after the army evacuated him on Monday. "We moved to my cousin's house and this morning it was also bombed."

Adnan, who has shrapnel lodged in his skull from an earlier mortar attack, said he survived, with others, by hiding in the houses' underground cellars.

Thousands of people in the last patch of Mosul still controlled by the insurgents have been huddling for weeks in similar conditions, with little food and no electricity. They fear being bombed if they remain in place and being shot by snipers if they try to flee.

Iraqi forces have pushed Islamic State into a shrinking rectangle no more than 300 by 500 metres beside the Tigris river, but slowed their advance on Tuesday out of caution for an estimated 10,000 civilians trapped there alongside the militants.

Residents have been caught in the crossfire - and often intentionally targeted by Islamic State - since the offensive began more than eight months ago. Thousands have been killed and around 900,000 - around half of Mosul's pre-war population - have been displaced.

Those in the historic Old City, the offensive's final target, have been besieged and under fire for longer than those in any other part of Mosul, and the toll is apparent.

Children are emerging bone thin and severely dehydrated, elderly people are collapsing en route. In many cases there is nothing to eat besides boiled wheat.

At a mustering point less than a kilometre from the frontline, residents rattled off the latest prices of basic goods which they said had become prohibitively expensive in the past three months: a kilogram of lentils for 60,000 Iraqi dinars ($51), rice for 25,000 and flour for 22,000.

Mohammed Taher, a young man from the Makawi area of the Old City, said Russian-speaking IS fighters spread out across the neighbourhood had impeded civilian movement.

"It was a prison," he said. "Five days ago they locked the door on us. They said, 'Don't come out, die inside'. But the army came and freed us."

A European medic at a field hospital said he has seen more severe trauma cases among civilians fleeing the fighting in the past week than he had in 20 years of service back home.

SCREENING

From the mustering point, camouflaged army lorries carry the evacuees across the Tigris river to a security screening centre in the shadow of the Nineveh Oberoi Hotel, a former five-star hotel which Islamic State once used to house foreign fighters and suicide bombers.

More than 4,000 people have passed through that screening centre since mid-May, said Lieutenant Colonel Khalid al-Jabouri, who runs the site. In that time, security forces have detained around 400 suspected IS members, he said.

"They are wanted so they cross with the civilians like they are one of them," he told Reuters. "In order to relieve our country from these pigs, we have to check every person who comes and goes."

Jabouri pointed out two middle-aged men who intelligence officers had pulled aside from among several dozen others for suspected links to Islamic State. One wore a traditional white robe and black headdress, the other had a shaved head and a bandage on one leg.

"That person is a Daesh member," he said, pointing at the second man. "He crossed without papers but he is Daesh. He crossed wounded or pretending to be wounded."

The number of Islamic State militants fighting in Mosul, by far the biggest city it has ever controlled, has dwindled from thousands at the start of the U.S.-backed offensive to a couple of hundred now, according to the Iraqi military.

The security forces rely on a list of names and witness testimonies to identify suspected Islamic State members. Even as the military offensive draws to a close, though, it is clear that some militants have managed to slip through the cracks.

Suspected militants are arrested on a daily basis in Mosul neighbourhoods proclaimed "liberated" from Islamic State months ago, and several suicide attacks have already been carried out in those areas.

(Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

(REUTERS)

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 7/4/2017 5:20:38 PM
	North Korea Claims Success in Long-Range Missile Test 点击查看本文中文版 By CHOE SANG-HUNJULY 4, 2017 A photograph released by North Korea’s official news agency on Tuesday that is said to show the intercontinental ballistic missile being launched. KCNA, via European Pressphoto Agency SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Tuesday that it had successfully conducted its first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, claiming a milestone in its efforts to build nuclear weapons capable of hitting the mainland United States. The announcement came hours after a launch that the United States military said had sent the missile aloft for 37 minutes. That duration, analysts said, suggested a significant improvement in the range of the North’s missiles, and it might allow one to travel as far as 4,000 miles and hit Alaska. In an initial statement, the United States Pacific Command described the weapon as an intermediate-range missile rather than an intercontinental ballistic missile. But South Korean and Japanese officials said they were studying the data to determine if it was an ICBM. The missile departed the Banghyon airfield in the northwestern town of Kusong and flew 578 miles before landing in the sea between North Korea and Japan, the South Korean military said in a statement. The Japanese government said the missile landed in its so-called exclusive economic zone off its western coast. Under a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions, North Korea is prohibited from developing or testing ballistic missiles. While the North has made significant progress in its weapons programs, experts believe it cannot make nuclear warheads small enough to be mounted on ICBMs. Still, American policy makers have long seen just the development of an ICBM as a critical threshold the North should not be allowed to cross. The missile test adds a volatile new element to the Trump administration’s efforts to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, which have included naval drills off the Korean Peninsula and pressure on China, Pyongyang’s longtime ally. In a blunt phone call on Sunday, President Trump warned President Xi Jinping of China that the United States was prepared to act alone against North Korea. If the missile took 37 minutes to fly 578 miles, that would mean that it had a highly lofted trajectory, probably reaching an altitude of more than 1,700 miles, said David Wright, co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Such a missile would have a maximum range of roughly 4,160 miles, or 6,700 kilometers, on a standard trajectory, he said. North Korea said the missile, which it identified as the Hwasong-14, flew for 39 minutes. “That range would not be enough to reach the lower 48 states or the large islands of Hawaii, but would allow it to reach all of Alaska,” Mr. Wrightwrote in a blog post. The missile looked like the longest-range missile that North Korea had ever tested, and its long flight time was “more consistent with an ICBM that can target Alaska and perhaps Hawaii,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. “It’s a very big deal — it looks like North Korea tested an ICBM,” he said by email. “Even if this is a 7,000-km-range missile, a 10,000-km-range missile that can hit New York isn’t far off.” But analysts also cautioned that although they have been impressed by the rapid and steady progress in the North’s missile programs, the long flight time itself did not suggest that North Korea had mastered the complex technologies needed to build a reliable nuclear-tipped ICBM, such as the know-how to separate the nuclear warhead and guide it to its target. By lofting some of its recent missiles to higher altitudes and letting them crash down toward the earth at greater speeds, North Korea has claimed that it tested its “re-entry” technology, which can protect a nuclear warhead from intense heat and vibrations as it crashes through the atmosphere. But it is still unclear whether the North has successfully cleared that technological hurdle, missile experts said. A photograph released by the North Korean news agency showing Kim Jong-un reacting after the launch. KCNA, via Reuters Kim Dong-yub, a defense analyst at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul, said that the Hwasong-12, which the North tested in May, flew 489 miles in 30 minutes, soaring to an altitude of 1,312 miles. Such a missile could deliver a standard 1,430-pound nuclear warhead over a range of 2,800 miles, not enough to reach Hawaii and Alaska, as North Korea claimed at the time. North Korea’s test on Tuesday may have been intended to prove that its missiles could reach Hawaii and Alaska, Mr. Kim said. Early last year, North Korea defied United Nations resolutions by using a rocket to put a satellite into orbit, a move that many saw as a cover for developing an ICBM. Compared with that rocket, which was fired from a bulky space launcher, the missile tested on Tuesday appeared to use different fuel and a better engine, Mr. Lewis said. Photographs published by the North’s state news media indicated it was small enough to be transported by a truck. North Korea announced the missile launch in a broadcast on state television after a series of patriotic music videos. “As a proud nuclear power that possesses not only nuclear weapons but also the most powerful ICBM that can target any part of the world, North Korea will root out the United States’ threat and blackmail of nuclear war and solidly defend the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the region,” the North Korean statement said. North Korea called the test “a momentous event in the history of the country” and said it had brought “great joy” to North Koreans. Before the announcement, Mr. Trump had noted the missile launch on Twitter, suggesting that it was time for China to act decisively against the North and “end this nonsense once and for all.” On Tuesday, Chinese officials criticized the missile test, saying it violated United Nations rules. But at the same time, the Chinese government offered no signs that it was preparing to take more drastic action against the North, urging a return to diplomatic talks instead. “I have to reiterate that the current situation in the Korean Peninsula is complicated and sensitive,” Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a regular news conference in Beijing. “We hope all sides concerned can remain calm and restrained so that tensions can be eased as soon as possible.” Later in Moscow, where President Xi of China was visiting, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said both had agreed to advance a joint proposal to settle the Korea crisis by simultaneously freezing the North’s nuclear and missile programs and the joint military drills by the United States and South Korea. In remarks broadcast on Russian television, Mr. Putin called a solution proposed with China “a joint foreign-policy priority.” Russia, which like China borders North Korea, has repeatedly called for a diplomatic solution. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned that the launch would give “more arguments to those who seek pretexts for new escalation of tensions,” according to the Interfax news agency. Mr. Trump is to meet this week with both Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi at the Group of 20 meeting in Germany, and Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said the missile test would force them to find some kind of common ground on North Korea. He did not specify what that might be, but he suggested that it would now be more difficult for Mr. Xi to stand by Pyongyang. “Certainly the test will change the game,” Mr. Cheng said. “The business-as-usual situation is over.” Other analysts said the launch would put Mr. Trump’s administration in a precarious position, given that it had indicated that such a missile, capable of reaching parts of the United States, was a critical threshold. In January, Mr. Trump declared on Twitter “it won’t happen !”; the message set off a cascade of speculation on what exactly he meant. “The important thing is that Donald Trump doesn’t let himself be backed into a corner and that he understands that there are long-term options to contain, constrain and deter the regime,” said Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington. The United States had hoped North Korea would stop short of developing a long-range missile that could reach its shores, Mr. Mount said. Now, he said, the United States and its allies will have to compromise on any expectation that North Korea will ever give up its nuclear program, he added. “Talks can’t proceed from the presumption of denuclearization,” he said. “And we can’t coerce North Korea back to the negotiating table to prevent them from crossing a threshold they have already crossed.” ____________ Reporting was contributed by Austin Ramzy and Jane Perlez from Hong Kong, Motoko Rich from Tokyo, Javier C. Hernández from Beijing, and Ivan Nechepurenko from Moscow. (The New York Times)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+2

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 7/4/2017 5:38:00 PM
	U.S. military assumes attack position off coast of Syria Inessa Sinchougova (translator) Rusvesna / Fort Russ Mon, 03 Jul 2017 16:10 UTC © U.S. Navy / Reuters The United States has deployed ships and aircraft for a possible attack on an air base in Syria, "but it is not planning to attack", as CNN reported, citing several anonymous sources. The US is watching the Shayrat airbase, where the envisaged chemical attack may be carried out, which Washington promised to respond to. However, no suspicious activity on the base has occurred. US Secretary of Defensem James Mattis said on Wednesday that, according to him, the Syrian authorities "took the warning seriously." Earlier, the press service of the White House said that President Bashar Assad is preparing a new chemical attack, and promised that, if implemented, the Syrian authorities will "pay a high price." The United States failed to provide evidence of this. Russia counter-responded by identifying US-supported rebels as the ones planning yet another chemical incident, to be blamed on the Assad government. Comment: Typical American move: plan to attack, say you're not going to, get indignant when the target complains you're acting aggressively. The Russian response: Russia will respond adequately and in proportion if the US implement its threats against Damascus for allegedly preparing a chemical attack, as stated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. "I very much hope that this time the United States will be guided by the need to really protect the non-proliferation of chemical weapons and not to speculate on the alleged intelligence, which comes from "secret sources". They cannot create pretexts for another blow to the forces of the Syrian army"- Lavrov said. (sott.net)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+2

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 7/4/2017 5:56:06 PM
	What freedom? The 4th of July is purely symbolic Rachel Blevins The Free Thought Project Tue, 04 Jul 2017 16:37 UTC Every year on July 4, Americans celebrate their "freedom" on Independence Day—the anniversary of the day the founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence and established the United States as an independent nation in 1776. As Americans prepare to commemorate Independence Day in 2017—gathering together with friends and family to eat, drink and watch elaborate fireworks displays—they are blindly celebrating a false sense of freedom based on a list of liberties that are far from the current practices of the U.S. government. Endless Taxes When schoolchildren in the U.S. learn about the great American Revolution, they are taught about the important role taxes played in the decision to rebel against the British government. American colonists fought back against the unnecessary taxes and tariffs that seemed to increase by the year, and they took a stand against the heinous idea of "taxation without representation." However, today the U.S. federal tax code is around 75,000 pages—so long that most of the politicians who have the authority to push for legal change to it, have never actually read it. In fact, the Washington Examiner reported in April 2016 that the current version of the federal tax code is more than 187 times longer than it was a century ago. "Amazingly, in the first 26 years of the federal income tax, the tax code only grew from 400 to 504 pages. Even through President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, the tax code was well under 1,000 pages. Changes during World War II made the length of the tax code balloon to 8,200 pages. Most of the growth in the tax code came in the past 30 years, growing from 26,300 pages in 1984 to nearly three times that length today." Mass Incarceration When schoolchildren in the U.S. are taught about history, they are taught about the abolishment of slavery in the 1860s, followed by the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. They are taught that Americans finally learned how to appreciate all people, regardless of race. However, they are not taught about the forms of modern day slavery, in which race and poverty play an important role. A study conducted by the Brennan Center of Justice at NYU School of Law in 2016 found that nearly 40 percent of the U.S. prison population—around 576,000 people—are behind bars with "no compelling public safety reason." More than 25 percent of prisoners—364,000 people—are serving prison sentences for nonviolent offenses. Mass Surveillance The peaceful transition of power is known as one of the cornerstones of American policy, and issues such as mass surveillance appear to transcend party lines. From President Bush signing the Patriot Act, to President Obama signing the USA Freedom Act, Americans have seen an ongoing loss of privacy rights in the 21st Century. While President Trump has openly praised government surveillance, he wouldn't have his current ability to spy on innocent Americans, if it wasn't for the actions of his predecessors. Just days before he left office, Obama signed an executive order that gave the National Security Agency the authority to share the raw streams of the communications it intercepts from Americans directly with government agencies such as the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. EndlessWar When British colonists arrived on American soil, they acted as if they were the first to ever discover the land, and appeared to have very little regard for the Native American people who were already inhabitants. The only "war" that was waged was for a land the American colonists chose to claim as their own—in many ways, that practice is still carried out today. The concept of endless war is one that has been passed from one administration to the next in the U.S., with each new president adding to and intensifying the current ongoing conflicts. Instead of pursuing a conflict because the opposing country directly attacked the U.S., the true strategy revolves around what the U.S. can stand to gain from the country's natural resources, along with the factor of whether that country recently dropped the U.S. dollar. While Donald Trump ran on a policy of not invading other countries, his sentiment quickly changed once he became the lead puppet for the military industrial complex. As U.S. Founding Father Benjamin Franklin once said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." In 2017, the current status of the United States is one in which when it comes to the areas of taxes, war, and the police and surveillance state, the American public seems to have no regard for the police state they willingly submit to, all the while openly celebrating their "Freedom." Comment: It's time to re-evaluate Independence Day (sott.net)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+2

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 7/5/2017 10:20:06 AM
	ELTON JOHN BOMB PLOT: BRITISH JIHADI JAILED FOR LIFE AFTER SPY STING BY JACK MOORE ON 7/4/17 AT 3:56 AM A British court on Monday sentenced a teenage jihadi to life in jail for plotting to bomb an Elton John concert on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Haroon Syed, 19, a sympathizer of the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), tried to buy a machine gun and the materials needed for a suicide bomb vest ahead of the Elton John concert in Hyde Park, London, last September. Syed's arrest and conviction came after a spy sting that saw him become involved in online chatter with an agent for the MI5 security service who posed as a fellow extremist. He asked for "gear" from the agent, saying he needed both a suicide vest and automatic weapon "so after some damage with machine gun do martyrdom...that's what I'm planning to do." He had failed to get bank loans on two occasions to fund the weapons. The agent spoke to Syed for several weeks, subsequently meeting him in a coffee shop in the English county of Berkshire, outside West London, and recording their conversation. Syed handed the agent around $200 for a suicide bomb that he would pick up after their meeting on August 30, 2016. “I might put the bomb in the train and then I’m going to jump out so the bomb explodes on the train …. So ask the brother if he can make that type of bomb with button.” He asked the agent, with the alibi Abu Yusuf, to pack the bomb with nails. “I was thinking of Oxford Street…If I go to prison, I go to prison. If I die, I die, you understand,” he said, referring to the popular shopping street in central London. Authorities discovered that Syed's recent Internet searches included ISIS material, places with packed crowds in London and the Elton John concert in London's Hyde Park. A week after the coffee shop meeting, police swooped to arrest Syed at his home in Hounslow , west London. Asked for the password to unlock his phone, Syed responded: "Yeah ISIS, you like that?" Haroon Syed, 19, admitted to preparing acts of terrorism after attempting to get hold of weapons including a suicide bomb and machine gun.MET POLICE British media reports said Syed was radicalized after his older brother Nadir was arrested for a beheading plot linked to ISIS in November 2014. The authorities seized Syed's passport the following year, to prevent him from traveling to Syria to join the jihadi group. He is to spend at least 16-and-a-half years in prison after admitting to the preparation of terrorist acts. The sentencing judge Michael Topolski said Syed had his sights on "carrying out an act of mass murder in this country. (Newsweek)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+2

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 7/5/2017 11:01:55 AM
	Tue Jul 4, 2017 \| 7:58pm BST Desperate civilians flee last Islamic State pocket in Mosul An elderly displaced Iraqi woman who fled from Islamic State militants carries a baby in Mosul, Iraq July 3, 2017. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani By Stephen Kalin \| MOSUL, IRAQ Shop-owner Adnan dragged himself from the rubble two days in a row after the houses he was sheltering in were bombed, one after the other, in the U.S.-led campaign to uproot the last Islamic State militants from Mosul. "Daesh (Islamic State) forced us out of our home, so we moved to a relative's house nearby. Yesterday the house was bombed," he said after the army evacuated him on Monday. "We moved to my cousin's house and this morning it was also bombed." Adnan, who has shrapnel lodged in his skull from an earlier mortar attack, said he survived, with others, by hiding in the houses' underground cellars. Thousands of people in the last patch of Mosul still controlled by the insurgents have been huddling for weeks in similar conditions, with little food and no electricity. They fear being bombed if they remain in place and being shot by snipers if they try to flee. Iraqi forces have pushed Islamic State into a shrinking rectangle no more than 300 by 500 metres beside the Tigris river, but slowed their advance on Tuesday out of caution for an estimated 10,000 civilians trapped there alongside the militants. Residents have been caught in the crossfire - and often intentionally targeted by Islamic State - since the offensive began more than eight months ago. Thousands have been killed and around 900,000 - around half of Mosul's pre-war population - have been displaced. Those in the historic Old City, the offensive's final target, have been besieged and under fire for longer than those in any other part of Mosul, and the toll is apparent. Children are emerging bone thin and severely dehydrated, elderly people are collapsing en route. In many cases there is nothing to eat besides boiled wheat. At a mustering point less than a kilometre from the frontline, residents rattled off the latest prices of basic goods which they said had become prohibitively expensive in the past three months: a kilogram of lentils for 60,000 Iraqi dinars ($51), rice for 25,000 and flour for 22,000. Mohammed Taher, a young man from the Makawi area of the Old City, said Russian-speaking IS fighters spread out across the neighbourhood had impeded civilian movement. "It was a prison," he said. "Five days ago they locked the door on us. They said, 'Don't come out, die inside'. But the army came and freed us." A European medic at a field hospital said he has seen more severe trauma cases among civilians fleeing the fighting in the past week than he had in 20 years of service back home. SCREENING From the mustering point, camouflaged army lorries carry the evacuees across the Tigris river to a security screening centre in the shadow of the Nineveh Oberoi Hotel, a former five-star hotel which Islamic State once used to house foreign fighters and suicide bombers. More than 4,000 people have passed through that screening centre since mid-May, said Lieutenant Colonel Khalid al-Jabouri, who runs the site. In that time, security forces have detained around 400 suspected IS members, he said. "They are wanted so they cross with the civilians like they are one of them," he told Reuters. "In order to relieve our country from these pigs, we have to check every person who comes and goes." Jabouri pointed out two middle-aged men who intelligence officers had pulled aside from among several dozen others for suspected links to Islamic State. One wore a traditional white robe and black headdress, the other had a shaved head and a bandage on one leg. "That person is a Daesh member," he said, pointing at the second man. "He crossed without papers but he is Daesh. He crossed wounded or pretending to be wounded." The number of Islamic State militants fighting in Mosul, by far the biggest city it has ever controlled, has dwindled from thousands at the start of the U.S.-backed offensive to a couple of hundred now, according to the Iraqi military. The security forces rely on a list of names and witness testimonies to identify suspected Islamic State members. Even as the military offensive draws to a close, though, it is clear that some militants have managed to slip through the cracks. Suspected militants are arrested on a daily basis in Mosul neighbourhoods proclaimed "liberated" from Islamic State months ago, and several suicide attacks have already been carried out in those areas. (Editing by Philippa Fletcher) (REUTERS)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Desperate civilians flee last Islamic State pocket in Mosul