Government both admits and denies health benefits of medical marijuana

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November 23, 2016

Posted on November 16, 2016 by Bob Livingston

Government both admits and denies health benefits of medical marijuana

Government doublespeak on the health benefits of marijuana knows no bounds.
The National Cancer Institute, an agency of the federal government, now lists on its website recent studies showing marijuana kills cancer cells. Meanwhile, the Drug Enforcement Agency continues to oppose any and all efforts to remove cannabis from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, claiming it has “no currently accepted medical use.”
According to NCI, preclinical studies of cannabinoids have shown:

Cannabinoids can kill cancer cells in animals while protecting normal cells.
Cannabinoids protects against colon inflammation and may potentially reduce the risk of colon cancer in mice.
In a laboratory study of delta-9-THC in hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) cells showed that cannabinoids damaged or killed the cancer cells. The same study of delta-9-THC in mouse models of liver cancer showed that it had antitumor effects. Delta-9-THC has been shown to cause these effects by acting on molecules that may also be found in non-small cell lung cancer cells and breast cancer cells.
In a laboratory study of cannabidiol (CBD) in estrogen receptor positive and estrogen receptor negative breast cancer cells, CBD was shown to have caused cancer cell death while having little effect on normal breast cells. Studies in mouse models of metastatic breast cancer showed that cannabinoids may lessen the growth, number, and spread of tumors.
A laboratory study of cannabidiol (CBD) in human glioma cells showed that when given along with chemotherapy, CBD may make chemotherapy more effective and increase cancer cell death without harming normal cells. Studies in mouse models of cancer showed that CBD together with delta-9-THC may make chemotherapy such as temozolomide more effective.
In animal studies, delta-9-THC and other cannabinoids have been shown to stimulate appetite and can increase food intake. Reduced appetite is a common problem experienced by chemotherapy patients.
Cannabinoids may prevent nerve problems (pain, numbness, tingling, swelling, and muscle weakness) caused by some types of chemotherapy, according to animal studies.
Cannabinoid receptors found in brain cells may have a role in controlling nausea and vomiting. Animal studies have shown that delta-9-THC and other cannabinoids may act on cannabinoid receptors to prevent vomiting caused by certain types of chemotherapy.

I told you last January how the federal government argued and continues to argue that marijuana is a dangerous drug with no medicinal value even while it patents marijuana extracts for health-related uses and as it was posed to grant a license to GW Pharmaceuticals for treating patients with multiple sclerosis with a cannabinoid-based drug called Epidiolex.
Cannabis marijuana medications have also been used with complete safety for the treatment of many health problems, including asthma, glaucoma, nausea, tumors, epilepsy, infection, stress, migraines, anorexia, depression, rheumatism and arthritis.
The NCI website claims, “No clinical trials of Cannabis as a treatment for cancer in humans have been found in the CAM on PubMed database maintained by the National Institutes of Health.” Yet, PubMed, aka the National Institutes of Health, aka another government agency, lists a number of studies that have been conducted. Also, the Schedule I listing severely limits or prohibits the ability of most research organizations to hold clinical trails.
The truth is, marijuana and its uses have been studied far more than most drugs the FDA approves for use on the general public – drugs that cure nothing but merely cover symptoms and generate billions of dollars for Big Pharma.
The federal government – and most local governments — is far more interested in using marijuana as a revenue stream in its fake “War on Drugs” than in allowing medical marijuana in its many forms to improve the lives of people with health problems.
All the “War on Drugs” has accomplished is to create suffering and death, a large prison population, a host of people with criminal records for victimless crimes, a more militarized police regime and great loss of liberty.

How do we rediscover freedom and truth?

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Steve Balich

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November 23, 2016

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Posted on November 21, 2016 by Bob Livingston

How do we rediscover freedom and truth?

Senior man wearing spectacles reading book in living room, close-up

Back in May, I warned my Bob Livingston Alerts readers about the real purpose of any election, and my warnings are coming to fruition.
Agents of the shadow government — the deep state — are using every vile meme they can think of to describe Donald Trump, and are fomenting protest and argument so that we keep fighting each other, and they can keep their power and wealth.
Understanding these agents and their aims is vital to your survival, not just as an American but as an independent human being. That’s why I want to make sure you see the warning I sent, which applies even more so these few months later:
The state always considers that a self-sufficient and independent thinker is a threat to collectivism and its deception of the masses.
The welfare state must absolutely keep the people from the individualistic tendency of thinking for themselves. Government parasites extract their wealth, power and pomp from mass deception based upon altruistic sacrifices of the workers and producers of wealth.
Their greatest fear is that this will be revealed. To keep it quiet, the government uses memetics.
You have heard the word “meme”? Injecting this word into the public consciousness so that any meme is remembered as simply a “silly internet joke” is part of your programming.
In reality a meme is an information pattern, held in an individual’s memory, which is capable of being copied to another individual’s memory. So memetics is neurolinguistic programming. You could also call it what I’ve called it for years — propaganda by code words.
You are programmed to respond in a particular way to certain words and phrases created by the elites.
It is important you recognize these words (and learn to recognize the truth) because once you become aware of the phrases and how they work, you will be able to shrug off the chains of modern slavery and there will be hope for you.

The overarching code word: Democracy

Most of you are already informed enough to know that the American nation was founded as a republic, not a democracy.
A republic is a limited, representative, participatory government. A republic is the almost natural result of public order built upon the individual, the family, the church, and business and many, many private associations and relations.
Democracy is not necessarily a representative government, but it is an illusory participatory government. People tend to think that democracy is evolved or modern republicanism.
Democracy is truly a veil for a wicked government that places all matters, including personal and private ones, into the public view, for public legislation.
In a democracy, the vote becomes the single, all-important symbol of citizen participation in government. Witness the movement to turn to another code word: the “popular vote.”
The brilliant Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville described in his “Democracy in America” the danger facing all Americans should they become deceived into believing that their mere, sole vote constituted all the duties of a good citizen.
He warned that when this development came about, we should become slaves to the real, elitist and plutocratic powers operating behind the veil of democracy. The problem was obvious more than 150 years ago, when de Tocqueville wrote his book.
Democracy flourishes where the hard-working, creative middle class perishes, or is not allowed to develop.
Now you know why the middle class is “disappearing.” It is in reality being destroyed in order to render the individual vote today meaningless.
So few people vote today that the illusion is breaking down. Some folks say I am a pessimist, but here you see that I am really an optimist. The middle class is opting out of the illusory democratic system.
But as a result, they are being herded into supporting a different collectivist system, the paper money system, which is less and less reliant on the dollar and more and more reliant on the stock market.
Think back… did the average middle class individual have a brokerage account 30 or 40 years ago?
But you can’t be entrusted to invest on your own, else the wealth-stealers will lose the ability to continue their thievery. So today, when you do invest, the financial media espouses a set of code words designed to keep you in the dark.
Financial code words are especially used to make you think you are free and have a choice. But they are part of selling you on “democracy.” Yet it is merely the mask of tyranny that pretends to promote public debate but always on spurious issues. He who speaks about the real issues is blacked out.
The people, through public schools and mass media indoctrination, eventually adopt government morality and habits. Every stage of growth of government carries at the same time a corresponding dependency of the people.
The growing dependency of the people upon government is a gradual, imperceptible and silent revolution.
I cringe when I hear the mention of “constitutional rights.” There is no such thing in the United States! As one example, we wouldn’t be forced to sign annual confessions on IRS tax form 1040 each year if there were any such thing as “constitutional rights.”
My friends, we are not under constitutional law. We are under merchant law. The U.S. Constitution is now merely historical memorabilia of human freedom that now passed away in favor of the money creators.
This means all so-called justice is under the jurisdiction of the “king’s court,” same as in colonial days. You didn’t know that? We are aliens in our own country and our continued beliefs in legal fictions and historical myths is demeaning to our mental capacity and militates far more to slavery than human liberty.

Prescription for individual freedom

Most people never break free of popular delusions because they will not read. 99.9 percent of people will not read, so you are already far above the average!
It’s as if they have some kind of phobia of reading. They wouldn’t buy a book or walk across the street if offered free. The frivolity of life is what consumes them. Yet if you do not read you will never break free and become truly wealthy and free.
You may become like those “educated” people whose thinking has been sealed within the parameters of education. They wouldn’t dare read anything not in harmony with what they already believe.
These are high IQ people. They think what they don’t know isn’t worth knowing.
You could become one of those people whose mind is crowded out. They have an information overload. They can’t see the woods for the trees. These people do read but they have trouble evaluating what to read. So they tend to look past high value and creative ideas that could give them great satisfaction as well as the good life.
All of the above are locked into the “public mind” — collectivism.
Reading and learning has liberated more people than all the wars in history.
I read five to eight books a month on health and finance and many, many publications. I don’t watch TV or go to the movies much, and I only look at the mainstream media to discover what is the propaganda of the day.
I research deeply through publications and information available on the Web. I spend thousands of dollars each year for publications that contain millions of dollars’ worth of information. I feel a conviction to decipher it and bring to you in these Bob Livingston Alerts [Editor’s Note: You can sign up to receive them FREE right here].
I want to help you stay three steps ahead of the propagandists and those trying to confiscate your wealth and take your freedom.
People who won’t read are no better off than those who can’t read. I can’t imagine such a collectivist fate.

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research…"

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By

Steve Balich

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November 23, 2016

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Posted on November 21, 2016 by Jon Rappoport

The illusion called medical journalism: the deep secret

Some of the greatest illusions are sitting out in the open. They are bypassed for two reasons. People refuse to believe they are illusions, despite the abundant evidence; and the professionals dedicated to upholding the illusions continue their work as if nothing at all has been exposed.
Medical journalists in the mainstream rely completely on studies published in prestigious journals.
This the rock. This is the science.
This is also the source of doctors’ authoritarian and arrogant advice to patients.
“Studies show…”
Well, that wraps it up. Nothing else to prove. The studies in the journals are the final word.
Medical reporters base their entire careers on these published reports.
But what if higher authorities contradicted all these studies? What if they scrutinized more studies than any reporter or doctor possibly could… and came to a shocking and opposite conclusion?
This very thing has happened. And the conclusions have been published. But medical reporters ignore them and go their merry way, as if a vast pillar of modern medicine is still intact… when it isn’t, when it has been decimated.
Buckle up.
Let us begin with a statement made by Dr. Marcia Angell, the former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, perhaps the most prestigious medical journal in the world — a journal that routinely vets and prints thousands of medical studies:
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” —Marcia Angell, MD, The New York Review of Books, January 15, 2009

You might want to read that statement several times, to savor its full impact. Then proceed to this next one, penned by the editor of The Lancet, another elite and time-honored medical journal that publishes medical studies:
Richard Horton, editor-in-chief, The Lancet, in The Lancet, 11 April, 2015, Vol 385, “Offline: What is medicine’s 5 sigma?”
“The case against science is straightforward: much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness…
“The apparent endemicity of bad research behaviour is alarming. In their quest for telling a compelling story, scientists too often sculpt data to fit their preferred theory of the world. Or they retrofit hypotheses to fit their data. Journal editors deserve their fair share of criticism too. We aid and abet the worst behaviours. Our acquiescence to the impact factor fuels an unhealthy competition to win a place in a select few journals. Our love of ‘significance’ pollutes the literature with many a statistical fairy-tale… Journals are not the only miscreants. Universities are in a perpetual struggle for money and talent…”
Still standing? Here are several more statements. They are devastating.
The NY Review of Books (May 12, 2011), Helen Epstein, “Flu Warning: Beware the Drug Companies”:
“Six years ago, John Ioannidis, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece, found that nearly half of published articles in scientific journals contained findings that were false, in the sense that independent researchers couldn’t replicate them. The problem is particularly widespread in medical research, where peer-reviewed articles in medical journals can be crucial in influencing multimillion- and sometimes multibillion-dollar spending decisions. It would be surprising if conflicts of interest did not sometimes compromise editorial neutrality, and in the case of medical research, the sources of bias are obvious. Most medical journals receive half or more of their income from pharmaceutical company advertising and reprint orders, and dozens of others [journals] are owned by companies like Wolters Kluwer, a medical publisher that also provides marketing services to the pharmaceutical industry.”
Here’s another quote from the same article:
“The FDA also relies increasingly upon fees and other payments from the pharmaceutical companies whose products the agency is supposed to regulate. This could contribute to the growing number of scandals in which the dangers of widely prescribed drugs have been discovered too late. Last year, GlaxoSmithKline’s diabetes drug Avandia was linked to thousands of heart attacks, and earlier in the decade, the company’s antidepressant Paxil was discovered to exacerbate the risk of suicide in young people. Merck’s painkiller Vioxx was also linked to thousands of heart disease deaths. In each case, the scientific literature gave little hint of these dangers. The companies have agreed to pay settlements in class action lawsuits amounting to far less than the profits the drugs earned on the market. These precedents could be creating incentives for reduced vigilance concerning the side effects of prescription drugs in general.”
Also from the NY Review of Books, here are two more quotes from Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine (“Drug Companies and Doctors: A Story of Corruption”):
“Consider the clinical trials by which drugs are tested in human subjects. Before a new drug can enter the market, its manufacturer must sponsor clinical trials to show the Food and Drug Administration that the drug is safe and effective, usually as compared with a placebo or dummy pill. The results of all the (there may be many) are submitted to the FDA, and if one or two trials are positive — that is, they show effectiveness without serious risk — the drug is usually approved, even if all the other trials are negative.”
Here is another Angell statement:
“In view of this control and the conflicts of interest that permeate the enterprise, it is not surprising that industry-sponsored trials published in medical journals consistently favor sponsors’ drugs — largely because negative results are not published, positive results are repeatedly published in slightly different forms, and a positive spin is put on even negative results. A review of seventy-four clinical trials of antidepressants, for example, found that thirty-seven of thirty-eight positive studies were published. But of the thirty-six negative studies, thirty-three were either not published or published in a form that conveyed a positive outcome.”
If you have the patience to read and re-read these statements, you’ll see they are marking out a scandal of scandals — the entirety of medical literature is a pipeline for deep fraud.
Citing with confidence a study on a drug, for example, would carry no more weight than an article about a celebrity in a gossip rag.
But medical reporters must pretend their sources are correct. It’s their job. If they reject published studies, they have nothing left — except to expose the giant scandal I’m outlining in this article. Biting the hand that feeds them would put them out of work. They’d end up writing about picnics for some local paper — if they were lucky.
However, that’s not my problem or yours. It’s theirs. They chose their profession.
We can settle on the truth. We can even spread it.
Why not?
— Jon Rappoport

Freedom of Speech

By

Steve Balich

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November 23, 2016

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Posted on November 21, 2016 by Sam Rolley

A libertarian tech revolt

As the political establishment and Silicon Valley become increasingly emboldened in efforts to silence online speech that defies political correctness or the “official story”, it’s time for free speech advocates and innovators to create online media spaces where the 1^stAmendment reigns supreme.
All the talk of eliminating “fake news” from the internet following Donald Trump’s unexpected electoral victory isn’t likely to stop any time soon. But what the left really means when it says “fake news” is, “information we would rather ignore or that we disagree with.”
In fact, this certainly isn’t a new tactic for the left. For years, any speech that doesn’t fit neatly within the increasingly tight confides of political correctness has been labeled as racist, misogynistic or simply hate speech.
Many of the tech giants that grew out of the progressive stronghold of Silicon Valley are more than happy to oblige enemies of free speech with policies that err heavily on the side of limiting speech to protect liberal sensibilities.
That became extremely evident in recent months as YouTube adopted a new moderation scheme that encourages social justice warriors to tattle on creators of controversial content and the decision to eliminate monetization for videos containing politically charged content. And over at Twitter, hundreds of so called alt right activists had their accounts suspended for tweets criticizing or defying aspects of political correctness.
But some social media users who value free speech over mushy gushy feel good protectionism are pushing back.
As Fast Company reported, innovators are creating new platforms aimed at allowing users to address more controversial topics:

For those alt-right individuals and other social media refugees who feel that their views are suppressed, there’s a new social network that promises a digital space for completely free and unfettered communications. Gab, a platform that looks and feels like a combination of Twitter and Reddit, is meant to “put people first and promote people first,” as it was described to me by its founder. And this week, it’s been attracting thousands of users, many of them alt-righters exiled from Facebook and Twitter, though its founder insists that it aims to expand beyond that community and build a more diverse audience. Even Richard Spencer, who leads the far-right National Policy Institute think tank and is widely credited with inventing the term “alt-right” had his Twitter account suspended on Tuesday and soon increased the frequency of his posts on Gab.
Gab is the brainchild of Andrew Torba, an adtech startup founder who now lives in Austin after a stint in Silicon Valley. He found the politically progressive atmosphere of the Bay Area to be stifling, making him uncomfortable about expressing his views, and he moved to Texas to help build his fledgling social network. He was once a member of Y Combinator (he was recently ousted), and has now taken on the mission of fixing what he sees as the censorship that plagues online spaces. The tipping point that pushed him to leave the tech bubble and start Gab came earlier this year, when he read that several Facebook employees had come forward to divulge that the network’s trending topics section was actively suppressing conservative news. “I knew I had to take action,” Torba says.

As more online outlets clamp down on free speech, Americans with contrarian political viewpoints will increasingly find the need to locate alternative social sharing platforms.
With any luck, maybe a conservative version of Silicon Valley will emerge as an incubator for such outlets.

Ring in the Holidays Homer 33C Student choirs, bands hosting holiday concerts

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By

Steve Balich

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November 23, 2016

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News Release
Homer CCSD 33C
Goodings Grove Luther J. Schilling William E. Young William J. Butler
Hadley Middle Homer Jr. High

Contact: Charla Brautigam, Communications/Public Relations Manager
cbrautigam@homerschools.org | 708-226-7628

For Immediate Release:
Nov. 22, 2016

Ring in the holidays with Homer 33C
Student choirs, bands hosting holiday concerts

Celebrate the holiday season with Homer School District 33C.

Students, under the direction of choral director Diane Pullara and band directors Jason Skube and Jason Thompson, are planning a series of holiday concerts throughout December.

Among those performing are the Hadley Middle School 5th and 6th grade choruses; the Homer Junior High School Chorus; the Homer Junior High School Show Choir; the 6th grade Band; the Homer Junior High School Concert Band; and the Homer Junior High School Symphonic Band.

The performance schedule is as follows:

7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 1 — 5th Grade Chorus Holiday Concert, Hadley Middle School gymnasium
7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 6 — 6th Grade Chorus Holiday Concert, Hadley Middle School gymnasium
6:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 12 — Homer Junior High Chorus and Show Choir Holiday Concert, Hadley Middle School gymnasium. (Prelude music at 6:30 p.m.; concert at 7 p.m.)
7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 13 — Band Winter Concert, Homer Junior High School gymnasium

Don’t let the holidays pass you by without hearing at least one of these talented groups of student musicians.

Like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/homer33c?fref=ts&ref=br_tf

Chicago aldermen continue to do as they please without any real ramifications.

By

Steve Balich

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November 23, 2016

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Brendan Reilly, alderman for the 42nd ward in Chicago, has a real estate lobbyist, Madeline Doering, as his effective Chief of Staff. Doering represents some of the largest real estate developers in the city, including Wirtz Realty and Fishman & Co. With a salary of $10,000/month, her position is a clear conflict of interest. Dan Proft & Amy Jacobson talked with Faisal Khan, CEO of Project Six, about this discovery and why it proves that Chicago aldermen continue to do as they please without any real ramifications.

Trump angers some after reversing position on Clinton emails

2016 Election

By

Steve Balich

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November 23, 2016

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Posted on November 22, 2016 by Sam Rolley

Trump angers some after reversing position on Clinton emails

During the presidential election, Donald Trump said that he intended to make certain that Hillary Clinton would be prosecuted for her email mistakes. The president-elect has now softened his tone— and some supporters aren’t happy.
Trump reportedly told reporters at The New York Times that he doesn’t want to do anything to “hurt the Clintons.”
“She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways,” Trump said.
He later reportedly added that prosecuting Clinton is “just not something that I feel very strongly about.”
The president-elect’s softened stance has surprised many supporters who believed the election as much a victory for Trump as it was a referendum on the Clinton family’s longtime abuse of the political system for personal gain.
Judicial Watch head Tom Fitton, who was instrumental in blowing the top off the Clinton email scandal, warned Trump against continuing “the Obama administration’s politicized spiking of a criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton.”
“President-elect Trump should focus on healing the broken justice system, affirm the rule of law and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Clinton scandals,” he said. “In the meantime, Judicial Watch will vigorously pursue its independent litigation and investigation of the Clinton email, national security, and other corruption scandals.”
Meanwhile, Breitbart exclaimed that the Trump position constituted a “broken promise” to his voters.
Still, it sounds like leaving Clinton alone will be a matter of policy for the next president.
His campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, even suggested that Trump is trying to send a message to elected Republicans still working to expose Clinton corruption.
“I think when the president-elect, who’s also the head of your party, tells you before he’s even inaugurated that he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content,” she said.

Getting closer to an era of government approved media

By

Steve Balich

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November 22, 2016

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Getting closer to an era of government approved media

Posted on November 18, 2016 by Sam RolleyViews: 1,846

78 Shares

“If we can’t discriminate between serious arguments and propaganda, then we have problems,” Obama said during a press conference alongside German leader Angela Merkel.
Part of the problem, according to Obama, is that the internet has lowered the barrier of entry to mass audiences to the point where internet hoaxsters have the same reach as traditional media outlets like CNN.
“If everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won’t know what to protect,” Obama said. “We won’t know what to fight for.”
Of course, what the president is saying and what he and establishment attackers of alternative media really mean are totally different things.
We’ve covered this several times since the establishment news media began flipping out over its inability to convince Americans that Hillary Clinton was the inevitable future President of the United States.
In case you missed them, a couple of recent posts:
Blow up your TV: Americans finally realize what we’ve been saying for years
Beat on social media by Trump supporters, liberals demand crackdown on conservatism
Mainstream media mind control failed… so the establishment vows to dismantle alternative sources
Hillary Clinton isn’t the election’s biggest loser
Think watching the news is keeping you informed? Think again…
Inconvenient truth: The media’s manufactured freak out over Trump refusal to say he’ll concede
Propaganda is really expensive
Big media made a deal with the Clinton devil long ago
Think about the tenor of the presidential election as portrayed by the national mainstream news media. If all your information came from mainstream outlets, it wasn’t an election about issues— it was an election about whether we’d have the first female president or be led by an alleged misogynistic racist.
The only problem was this: The media never really managed to find any firm evidence to back its character assassination of Trump in a meaningful way. Meanwhile, no thanks to the national news media, Clinton’s career of corruption came into plain view because of the work of transparency groups.
And that’s where alternative media came in, reporting and analyzing what the mainstream wouldn’t.
The liberal political establishment is losing control, and it is terrified. Think about the story the propaganda news networks fed American voters after Clinton’s campaign emails were leaked.
Some refused to report on the content of the emails because federal officials said the leaks were perpetuated by Russian hackers looking to sway election results. Of course, besides a vague national security statement, the political establishment conveniently failed to provide any real proof to back the claim.
Americans didn’t really buy it. And even for many who do think Russians leaked the emails, the content of the correspondence remained extremely disturbing.
With the Russian boogeyman no longer a viable option, the establishment is trying to suggest that all of the alternative media reports about Clinton’s corruption were simply false. In other words, the establishment realizes it can no longer write history via corporate media propaganda… so it’s working feverishly to re-write the account provided by alternative media observers.
Discrediting alternative media is a longtime goal of the anti-free speech leftist establishment.
Back in 2013, Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and other leading Democrats pushed legislative efforts to define journalism for legal purposes.
“A journalist gathers information for a media outlet that disseminates the information through a broadly defined ‘medium’ — including newspaper, nonfiction book, wire service, magazine, news website, television, radio or motion picture — for public use. This broad definition covers every form of legitimate journalism,” Durbin said at the time.
Of course, I’m sure you can guess who gets to decide what constitutes “legitimate” journalism in this kind of scenario.
To support his effort, you have to believe you are too stupid to decide what is and isn’t reliable information and that the government and its mass media allies never lie to you.
Of course, if you managed to catch anything revealed from recent leaks analyzed by alternative media outlets it’s a little tough to do so.

What is going on with Gold

By

Steve Balich

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November 22, 2016

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PANIC: Gold selling for $2,800/oz in India

By Luke Burgess
Written Monday, November 21, 2016

URGENT ALERT TO ALL GOLD INVESTORS
Gold is selling for $2,800 an ounce in India…
Chaos has broken out.
Millions of Indian citizens are scrambling to convert their now banned 500- and 1,000-rupee notes into legal tender.
Those who are lucky enough to be able to find someone willing to sell are buying gold at an unprecedented rate, currently paying up to US$2,800 for an ounce!
That’s a 125% premium over spot prices as they are reported by the CME Group.
I first wrote to Energy and Capital subscribers about the cash ban a couple weeks ago,saying…

At the height of the election drama Tuesday night, the Reserve Bank of India issued a surprise order that demonetized 500- and 1,000-rupee notes — making the country’s largest bills now virtually illegal to use. This will effectively remove 80% of the physical rupees in circulation.

Immediately following the ban were reports of hundreds standing in lines in banks and at ATMs to convert their cash into smaller denominations, with only few finding success and most only frustration.
A week later, the situation had devolved into some kind of post-Keynesian nightmare. One firsthand account details:

I went to convert my banned banknotes into new ones. The largest amount one can have converted is Rs 4,000 ($60), until further notice. There was a huge rush of people at the bank. Arguments were erupting, as people refused to stand in queues and the banks gave no explanation of what needed to be done. Fights were breaking out.
These people are going hungry, and some have begun to raid food shops. People are dying for lack of treatment at hospitals. Old people are dying in the endless queues. Some are killing themselves, as they are unable to comprehend the situation and simply don’t know what to do. There are now hundreds of such stories in the media.
Small businesses are in shambles, and many will probably never recover. The Hindu wedding season has just started and people are left with unusable banknotes. Their personal and family lives are now an utter disaster.

Indian Bank Line Nov 18 2016 Indian citizens scramble to convert or deposit demonetized 500- and 1,000-rupee notes. (Photo Source: Reuters)
The same account goes on to say…

People are now converting whatever they can into gold, silver, and mostly for the first time into the US dollar and other foreign currencies as well, all of which are trading at huge premiums. Money is also moving out of the country. Gold has shot up to as much as $2,800 per ounce, if you can find it.

IF you can find it!
Now consider this for a minute…
India is already the world’s #1 consumer of gold. In fact, there’s even an Indian holiday where people traditionally buy gold for each other as gifts.
Estimates suggest there are some 650 million ounces of gold in Indian households and temples.
There’s plenty of gold to be found in India. What’s hard to find is someone in India willing to sell their gold right now. And then IF you can find that person, the going rate has a 130% premium to CME spot prices.
Think about that for a minute…
People are paying more than double the cash spot price for gold due to India’s surprise demonetization scheme.
What happens if demonetization policies like this are spread around the world?
Or, rather, I should ask: what happens WHEN demonetization policies like this are spread around the world?
Several thousand miles away, another country is currently dealing with a similar and extreme currency crisis: Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe is no stranger to currency crises. The country became sovereign in 1980 and introduced the Zimbabwe dollar to replace the Rhodesian dollar.
However, due to mismanagement and corruption, hyperinflation in Zimbabwe ultimately reduced it to one of the lowest-valued currency units in the world. It was redenominated three times — in 2006, 2008, and 2009 — with denominations going up to $100 trillion until it was finally retired in 2009.
100 Trillion Zimbabwe Note
Since that time, currencies such as the U.S. dollar, euro, rand, rupee, pound, and Australian dollars have been used for transactions. In fact, nine different currencies are considered officially “legal tender” in Zimbabwe.
But in September, the central bank of Zimbabwe announced that it would issue US$75 million worth of its own “bond” notes that would be in use throughout the country by the end of the year.
The news of the new bond notes was met with mixed reactions. But a sense of distrust in the financial system and panic to secure cash supplies has ultimately caused many to begin hoarding these notes.
And just like in India, there are currently banks and ATMs with hundreds of people waiting in line.
Zimbabwe Bank Line Nov 18 2016 Zimbabweans line up at banks this week hoping to get as many new “bond” notes as possible. (Photo Source: CNN)
What’s the solution?
Well, for the world’s central banks, the solution is a cashless society.
For decades, there has been speculation and fears of the world moving toward a totally cashless society. But now that speculation is turning into a reality. It’s being seriously discussed by financial academics and is being tested around the world.
Here’s a headline from CNN last week…
“Zimbabwe is running out of money — can a cashless society save it?”
How about some local Indian headlines from last week…

“Demonetisation: The dream of a cashless economy” — The Indian Express
“Digital currency for a cashless India” — India Hindu Business Line
“The young and the cashless” — The Hindu‎

But maybe demonization and the move towards a cashless society is just happening in third-world and underdeveloped nations, right?
No. Last Wednesday, Sweden’s central bank announced that it was considering the issuance of an “e-krona,” ostensibly to replace the physical currency.
See what’s happening here?
We are witnessing the current fiat money system in its death throes. This will result in nothing less than trillions of dollars in wealth (stored labor) simply vanishing.
But, of course, the global banking system will try to retain its control over the world’s wealth. Most likely, I expect the world’s banking powers to simply attempt exchanging one fiat currency system for another. Whether or not that works out for them is left to be seen. But one thing is for sure…
In the intermediary, gold, precious metals, and other real assets are going to become extremely popular as vehicles for wealth storage as confidence in the global banking system’s fiat money system diminishes.
No exaggeration, the move towards a cashless society is happening so fast that I can barely keep up with writing about all of it. And that’s why I think it’s so important to own gold right now.
I’ve recently come across a very good indicator for gold prices most people don’t know about. But believe it or not, gold is often leased (at cost) between banks, producers, manufacturers, and others.
Now, the lease rate of gold changes daily. Sometimes anomalous spikes in these lease rates can signal big movements in gold.
Take a look at the big spike in gold lease rates right before the yellow metal took off back in January…

Now take a look at what happened following that spike in the lease rates…
Gold Nov 18 2016
Today’s lease rates are also signaling a buy in gold prices. Take some time to check out my video. At the end, I’m going to ask you to join my newsletter service, which I truly hope you do. But either way, take some time to check out the information on this gold leasing market. It could be an easy way to massive gains.
Until next time,
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Luke Burgess
follow basic @Lukemburgess on Twitter
In his early 30s, gold and natural resource investor Luke Burgess managed to do something most traders never achieve in a lifetime. After being bullish on gold starting in 2004, he exited all of his precious metal positions just eight weeks prior to the correction in gold prices beginning in October 2011… the exact top of the market. But after watching gold and the natural resource market continue to suffer month after month, Luke jumped back into the game and is more bullish than ever.
As an editor at Energy & Capital, Luke’s analysis and market research reaches hundreds of thousands of investors everyday. Luke is also the investment director of Angel Publishing’s new Secret Stock Files. newsletter, which helps investors leverage the future supply/demand imbalance that he believes could be key to a cyclical upswing in the hard asset markets. For more on Luke, go to his editor’s page.

Homer 33C opens classrooms for community observation

Uncategorized

By

Steve Balich

-

November 22, 2016

0

News Release
Homer CCSD 33C
Goodings Grove Luther J. Schilling William E. Young William J. Butler
Hadley Middle Homer Jr. High

Contact: Charla Brautigam, Communications/Public Relations Manager
cbrautigam@homerschools.org | 708-226-7628

For Immediate Release:
Nov. 21, 2016

Homer 33C opens classrooms for community observation

Community leaders returned to the classroom this month to see firsthand how Homer School District 33C is Preparing Future Ready Students.

“School has changed significantly since you and I were in school,” Superintendent Kara Coglianese told the group local bankers, first responders and elected officials on Nov. 17. “Students are more tech-savvy, using Chromebooks, iPads and other 21^st century learning tools to help them prepare for the demands of tomorrow.

“We’re preparing students for jobs that haven’t been created yet,” she added. “Coding is the new language out there. We need to get our children prepared for that.”

In conjunction with American Education Week, Homer School District 33C opened its classrooms for a morning of observation at Homer Junior High School and Hadley Middle School.

About a dozen village trustees, bankers and first responders accepted the district’s invitation to visit the schools and see how students learn today. The outreach program was sponsored by Countryside Bank.

“We want to showcase for the community what we’re doing here,” said Coglianese. “The school is the heart of a community.”

The morning began at the administration center with brief introductions and an overview of the district’s Future Ready initiative. Visitors were then divided into small groups and escorted to various classrooms.

Kathleen Robinson, assistant superintendent for instruction; Christi Tyler, assistant superintendent for business; Michael Portwood, human resources director; and Elizabeth Hitzeman, a retired teacher who now serves on the Board of Education, served as the escorts.

Among the classes they visited were Cathy Clayton’s Spanish class at Homer Junior High; Stephanie Moore’s STEAM lab at Homer Junior High; Celeste Rupsis’ technology class at Hadley Middle School; Joe Cernak’s reading/language arts class at Hadley Middle School; Kaleen DeFilippis’ math class at Hadley Middle School; and Andy Dole’s STEAM class at Hadley Middle School.

The visitors and escorts regrouped in the boardroom afterward to discuss what they had observed.

“I’m amazed,” Village of Homer Glen Trustee Beth Rodgers said after visiting a STEAM lab and Spanish class at Homer Junior High.

“I expected to see kids sitting at desks, looking in the same direction,” added Scott Hurula, director of educational partnerships for Olivet Nazarene University.

Instead, he found students helping each other and engaged in their learning.

“You’ve made the shift from traditional teachers (where teachers stand at the front of a classroom and lecture) to teachers being facilitators,” said Frank Perucca, Will County’s assistant regional superintendent.

Homer 33C has embraced the latest trends in education, agreed Coglianese, encouraging students to collaborate and use their creative thinking skills and critical thinking skills to solve problems.

“If they can think, they can handle anything thrown at them,” she said, explaining how teachers are no longer the “expert” but the facilitator who encourages students to ask questions and then research the answers together.

“It give them confidence to take risks,” she added.

The overarching code word: Democracy

Prescription for individual freedom

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