As U.S. Markets Near 52-Week Low, How Far Can They Fall?

September 26th, 2011

DailyFinance

By: Douglas Mcintyre

The S&P 500 is precariously close its 52-week low. If it breaks below that number, how much further might it fall? Recent history suggests the possibility of a long drop.

The S&P index is trading at 1,136, against a 52-week high of $1,371 and a low of $1,102. It topped $1,353 just a little over two months ago. Since then, stocks have sunk due to concerns about the possibility of a new recession and worries about a collapse of the debt markets in some of the eurozone’s most economically fragile nations.

A return to recession appears more likely by the day. U.S. consumer confidence is near lows last seen two years ago. Last week, stock markets dropped the most they have, on a weekly basis, since 2008. Unemployment numbers have barely improved over the past three months. And the the housing market shows no signs of improvement. Some economists believe prices won’t recover in certain markets for years.

Since the stock market hit its cyclic nadir in spring 2009, the backbone of its long rally has been strengthening corporate earnings. Those gains were driven in large measure by cost cutting. Sales have been slow to recover because there has been no strong economic recovery in the U.S., but productivity has increased sharply as companies figure out how to get more from each worker. Yet cost cutting can only go so far, and that trend is faltering after nearly four years of downsizing. While many employers may not cut more jobs, they aren’t hiring much either. Companies want to wait and see whether they can afford new workers. And President Obama’s tax credits for hiring won’t help much if firms think a new downturn is near, because a tax break can’t offset the sales drops that will occur if the economy slows sharply again, or begins to contract.

The question of whether a slowdown has severely damaged corporate revenue will begin to be answered as companies announce third-quarter earnings and offer guidance for the final quarter of the year. Weak numbers would provide another reason to sell stocks after the sharp declines of the past month.

The last sharp market dip took the S&P 500 below 683 in March 2009. If the stocks were to drop that far again, it would be a reset of another 40%. That’s unlikely. The sell-off that ended in spring 2009 was relatively rapid, based on the U.S. credit crisis and the realization that the U.S. economy was in its greatest recession in the better part of a century. But the S&P was only below 800 for a quarter, and recovered to that level by April 2009 as investors saw that the banking crisis had ended.

A near-collapse of the credit system with the next recession is unlikely. Banks have buttressed their balance sheets, and most of the largest financial firms say they have only modest exposure to EU sovereign debt. Still, that leaves the current economic slowdown, which is more than enough to drag us into the second dip of a double-dip recession. If it does, stocks have another 25% to fall.

Click here for the full report from DailyFinance

Obama Refers To Audiences At G.O.P. Debates

September 26th, 2011

The New York Times

By: Jackie Calmes

President Obama on Sunday criticized not only the Republicans vying to defeat him but also their party’s conservative base – symbolized by the audiences at recent candidate debates — in a busy day of four West Coast fund-raisers to collect money and rally dispirited Democratic donors.

In Woodside, Calif., an affluent community between San Francisco and San Jose, Mr. Obama hit his stump-speech theme that the 2012 election will be “a contest of values,” and then suggested that some in his audience might well be former Republicans “puzzled by what’s happening to that party.”

“I mean, has anybody been watching the debates lately?” he asked. Referring to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, who has sought federal aid to fight wildfires caused by a prolonged drought, Mr. Obama said: “You’ve got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change. It’s true. You’ve got audiences cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don’t have health care and booing a service member in Iraq because they’re gay.”

“That’s not reflective of who we are,” Mr. Obama said. “This is a choice about the fundamental direction of our country.” Obama advisers in the past have said he does not watch Republicans’ debates. But by his remarks, Mr. Obama showed he is well aware that a recent string of debates produced moments in which reactions from audiences of Tea Party sympathizers became as widely discussed afterward as anything the candidates said – prompting some of the candidates to distance themselves later from the expressions of intolerance or hardheartedness. Besides the episodes Mr. Obama cited, at another debate the loudest applause came at the mention of the numerous executions Mr. Perry has sanctioned.

To the relief of many Democrats, Mr. Obama has become more assertive lately in attacking Republicans and drawing contrasts with them. At Sunday’s first fund-raiser, one of two in the Seattle area, he said a Republican president would institute “an approach to government that would fundamentally cripple America in meeting the challenges of the 21st century.”

Depending on the event, donors gave from $100 to $35,800. Those in Woodside, on the expansive and sumptuously landscaped lawn of John W. Thompson, chairman of Symantec, gave the maximum amount, to be split between the Democratic Party and Mr. Obama’s reelection campaign. He addressed them as “my stockholders.”

There and elsewhere, Mr. Obama acknowledged that many of the donors would probably pay higher taxes after 2012 under his proposals to raise taxes on high-income households, both to offset the short-term costs of his job-creation plan in Congress and to reduce future annual budget deficits. Citing Republicans’ criticism that his proposals amount to “class warfare,” Mr. Obama delivered what has become his standard response – he is a proud warrior for the middle class – and drew applause.

Celebrities made appearances at several events. Lady Gaga was at the final function, held at the Atherton, Calif., home of Sheryl Sandberg, an executive of Facebook who was a Treasury official in the Clinton administration. The singer, extravagantly attired as usual, was about two feet taller than Mr. Obama thanks to her towering heels and upswept hair.

The musician Bruce Hornsby performed at the Woodside fund-raiser. And the former pro basketball players Bill Russell and Lenny Wilkens introduced Mr. Obama at Seattle’s Paramount Theater. At each stop, Mr. Obama gave a rundown of his administration’s record, including taking credit for rescuing the economy, decimating Al Qaeda and killing Osama bin Laden, ending the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy against openly gay service members, tightening financial industry regulations and – “as long as I get a second term” – implementation of the law expanding health insurance.

But Mr. Obama acknowledged that many Democrats, especially liberals, are disheartened that he has not been more successful in overcoming the obstructions of Congressional Republicans. “Shake off any doldrums,” he told supporters at the Seattle theater, and “get to work.”

In Woodside, he urged donors to “push back” against friends and neighbors whose criticisms are based on “inadequate information” from Fox News or Wall Street Journal editorials. “And in some cases,” he told them, “I may need you to have some arguments with our progressive friends.”

“We’re going to have a stark choice in this election,” Mr. Obama added. “But I have to make sure that our side is as passionate and as motivated and is working just as hard as the folks on the other side because this is a contest of values.”

Quoting his vice president, “my friend Joe Biden,” Mr. Obama said, “Don’t compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative.”

Click here for the full report from The New York Post

The Great Iraqi Giveaway

September 26th, 2011

The Huffington Post

By: Dan Froomkin

With just over three months until the last U.S. troops are currently due to leave Iraq, the Department of Defense is engaged in a mad dash to give away things that cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars to buy and build.

The giveaways include enormous, elaborate military bases and vast amounts of military equipment that will be turned over to the Iraqis, mostly just to save the expense of bringing it home.

“It’s all sunk costs,” said retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who oversaw the training of Iraqi soldiers from 2003 to 2004. “It’s money that we spent and we’re not going to recoup.”

There were 505 U.S. military bases and outposts in Iraq at the height of operations, said Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq. Only 39 are still in U.S. hands — but that includes each of the largest bases, meaning the most significant handovers are yet to come.

Those bases didn’t come cheap. Construction costs exceeded $2.4 billion, according to an analysis of Pentagon annual reports by the Congressional Research Service. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers alone was responsible for $1.9 billion in base construction contracts between 2004 and 2010, a spokesman told HuffPost.

Rather than strip those bases clean and ship everything home, Defense Department officials tell The Huffington Post that over 2.4 million pieces of equipment worth a total of at least $250 million — everything from tanks and trucks to office furniture and latrines — have been given away to the Iraqi government in the past year, with the pace of transfers expected to increase dramatically in the coming months.

THE U.S. BASES

The most colossal relics of the U.S. invasion of Iraq will be the outsize military bases the Bush administration began erecting not long after the invasion, under the never explicitly stated assumption that Iraq would become the long-term staging area for U.S. forces in the region.

As a recent Congressional Research Service report noted, the Department of Defense “built up a far more extensive infrastructure than anticipated to support troops and equipment in and around Iraq and Afghanistan.”

The biggest push came in 2005, with over $1.2 billion in base-building contracts signed in that fiscal year alone, according to CRS.

“How did we come to be wasting that much money?” asked Heather Hurlburt, executive director of the progressive National Security Network. The answer, she said, is that dissenting voices weren’t heeded when Bush administration officials were pushing their hugely overambitious agenda.

“The problem that is often cited in the run-up to the war continued afterward,” she said. “The political and media elite weren’t paying attention.”

It wasn’t until late in Bush’s second term that “cooler heads prevailed,” Hurlburt said, and it became apparent that there was no political will in either country for the U.S. to keep permanent bases in Iraq, and therefore no need to spend so much to build them.

But by then, the plans had already been set in motion. As Stars and Stripes reported last year, major construction continued even after November 2008, when then-President George W. Bush and Iraqi officials signed a security agreement calling for all U.S. troops to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

Most of the $2.4 billion was spent building about a dozen huge outposts that, in addition to containing air strips and massive fortifications also have all the comforts of home. The Al-Asad Airfield in Anbar province, for example, covers 25 square miles — about the size of Boulder, Colo. — and is known as “Camp Cupcake” due to its amenities.

The 15-square-mile Joint Base Balad, as Whitney Terrell wrote earlier this year for Slate, is “home to three football-field-sized chow halls, a 25-meter swimming pool, a high dive, a football field, a softball field, two full-service gyms, a squash court, a movie theater, and the U.S. military’s largest airfield in Iraq.”

Despite the media’s elegiac obituaries for these major bases — like the prematurely named “Camp Victory”, with its palace, its lake, and its giant, killer carp — the fact is that not one major base has yet been evacuated.

And it’s not clear just what the Iraqis will do with some of those bases, once they get them.

One U.S. officer whose unit turned over a military outpost in a Baghdad neighborhood to the Iraqi Army in 2009 told the Washington Post that Iraqi soldiers looted it within hours of the U.S. departure. “When we returned to the outpost the next morning, most of the beds had already been taken, wood walls and framing had been pulled and several air-conditioning units had been removed from the walls, leaving gaping holes,” the officer told the Post. Weeks later, he added, the power generator the Americans had left behind was barely working.

One Iraqi entrepreneur indicated to NPR last year that there’s a thriving black market in U.S. items. “The Americans turn over every base to the Iraqi army and police — and they are all thieves,” he said.

SO MUCH EQUIPMENT

Much of the U.S.’s most lethal and valuable military equipment is being shipped out of Iraq, in one of the military’s biggest logistical efforts in history. Johnson, the spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, said that 1.5 million items have been removed in the past 12 months, with about 800,000 to go. “It’s an enormous task, but we have no major concerns on our ability to meet the necessary timelines.” Johnson wrote in an email to HuffPost.

But whenever a big army moves out, there’s always a lot left behind — what Stephen Biddle, a defense expert at the Council on Foreign Relations likens to an “iron mountain.”

The Pentagon can legally transfer four different categories of equipment to the Iraqi government: “excess personal property,” such as generators and mattresses, air conditioners and latrines; excess defense articles; sales from stock, including spare parts and ammunition; and non-excess military items deemed particularly useful for the Iraqi security forces.

Various Department of Defense officials provided not entirely consistent data on exactly how much has been given away thus far in each category. But the man in charge, Maj. Gen. Thomas Richardson, the chief logistics officer in Iraq, told reporters last month that U.S. forces had given away equipment with a fair market value of $247 million between Sept. 1, 2010, and August of this year — on top of items worth $157 million that had been transferred before the withdrawal officially started.

The lion’s share of donated items falls into the category of excess, non-military property. Major Kimbia Rey, a spokesperson for the U.S. forces in Iraq, told The Huffington Post this week that more than 2.4 million such items have been transferred to the government of Iraq since last September.

Richardson explained that much of that category consists of what they call “FOB in a box.” When the Iraqis take over a Forward Operating Base, he said, they also get the things that go with it, such as containerized housing units, water and fuel tanks, air conditioning units, generators, refrigerators, porta-johns, beds and mattresses, office equipment, fences, dining facilities and so on.

According to Lt. Col Melinda F. Morgan, a Pentagon spokeswoman, some 12,490 excess defense items worth $70.5 million have been turned over to the Iraqis, with 7,000 more, worth about $40 million, to go. That category includes such things as older versions of weapons, vehicles, and body armor.

Finally, U.S. forces have also given the Iraqis 1,251 non-excess military items worth $47.7 million, Morgan said. That category includes such items as up-armored Humvees and 50-caliber machine guns, Richardson said.

All of the dollar figures are for what the military calls “fair market value”; the purchase price of those items could, of course, have been much higher.

And Morgan noted that the “heaviest volume of future property transfers” is expected to occur between September and December of this year, although the “quantity and value” of what is still to come has not yet been determined.

Indeed, a Government Accountability Office report issued earlier this month raised concerns that military officials will suddenly find a lot of equipment they didn’t expect — right at the last minute, just when everybody’s leaving.

After one of the largest base transitions to date, the GAO reported, “officials said that they were surprised at the amount of unaccounted-for equipment that was left over at the end of the transition process.” Senior military officials told the GAO they were particularly worried that unexpected or abandoned contractor equipment — including expensive and much-in-demand materiel-handling equipment, like forklifts and pallet trucks — would suddenly show up “likely at the last minute.”

Some equipment has simply piled up in Iraq since combat operations began in 2003 and may not be properly logged, the GAO warned, pointing out, for example, that “units sometimes turn in such equipment without paperwork and have even removed identifying markings such as serial numbers to avoid retribution.”

And while leaving the equipment in Iraq, especially if it’s worn out or particularly bulky, is much cheaper and more expedient than shipping it home, there’s no getting around the enormous expense of purchasing it in the first place — and that some of it is precisely the kind of equipment that was in such desperately short supply when state National Guards tried to respond to domestic natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina in 2005, or the Greensburg, Kansas, tornado in 2007.

Hurlburt’s concern is not so much that the U.S. is giving away the bases and the equipment, but that all these things that so much money was spent on aren’t necessarily going to do their new owners much good. “At least, you would like if we were leaving them there, they would be useful to Iraqis,” she said.

And it’s an awful lot of stuff. “I’m thinking about the size of what was wasted there, and thinking about how what we spent in Iraq was all borrowed,” she said. “In a crazy way, what we left in Iraq was our good credit rating.”

Click here for the full report from The Huffington Post

Occupy Wall Street

September 26th, 2011

The Huffington Post

By: Joe The Nerd Ferraro

Over the last week or so protestors have been attempting to take over Lower Manhattan to ask for what was thought to be an overhaul of the financial system. First glance — this is a great issue a very large number of Americans can get behind.

On Sunday night I was viewing a live feed from the park where the protestors have gathered. It was a large group that would repeat, as a human megaphone, what a primary speaker was saying. A statement would be made and the crowd would repeat it in one voice. Sometimes it would sound like a prayer as a speaker asked to recite the First Amendment.

But what this group is doing to itself as it asks for media coverage, may be killing itself. There is no focus to this group or movement. A speaker got up and started talking about a General Assembly. At first I thought they were going to air their grievances to the UN across town. Evidently, there are so many issues this group wants to deal with they needed to form a self-government to manage them.

One woman got up and said that there are a number of issues to be settled and all the issues are equal. This is the point where this venture is due to fail.

Every time you add an issue you lose people. Most of us are certainly for things like reforming Wall Street and curbing the institutionalized greed. But if these folks are going to bundle a Free Bradley Manning Pizza with a 2 liter bottle of Kill the Fed and a box of Take Everybody’s Guns Cheesy Fries — that is not what I want to order.

Seriously, what event will have to happen for these folks in the park to say, “we won that — let’s move on.”

If every issue is equal, you are giving an easy handle for those who would want to bring the main issue down. If I am working for the Koch Brothers, I would send people in to do exactly what is being done at the lowest level here — get attention for fringe issues to slam wedges into the group to drive people away.

When the mainstream media does FINALLY show up, it will be displaying a bunch of anarchists who have discredited themselves. A herd of cats is not pretty.

If this group does not get a focus as to what they are about then why should anyone on the outside pay attention to them? There is nothing wrong with a movement declaring itself for one singular thing, getting that done to build credibility, then reconstituting itself for the next singular thing.

Whether you like the Tea Party or not -= they got their footing on one singular thing (Taxes are Evil), built on it when they got a critical mass and are now a force in American Politics.

The country is willing to listen if there is a solid message with a clear goal. This group can speak in one voice to talk amongst itself — it has to speak in one voice on a single issue to the rest of us.

Click here for the full report from The Huffington Post

How To Determine Cancer In Your Body Long Before It Is Diagnosable

September 26th, 2011

Natural News

By: Angelika (Angie) Stehle

People are focused on enjoying life. Preventing disease sounds good to most individuals, as long as it doesn’t stop them from having their pleasure trips, including delicious food. To the wise, for a discerning person real enjoyment begins with the state of good health, never mind in which areas they have to exercise self-control to achieve or maintain it. This difference becomes very evident in view of the ever-present threat of cancer. In the western world every 2nd man and every 2.8th woman has cancer or will suffer from it in their lifetime. Obviously early detection would be advantageous, as long as it is followed by a treatment that works. Typically, cancer is diagnosed only after it can be seen on an x-ray or felt or palpated. A cancerous tumour forms when tiny individual cells change from being oxygen-dependent to being sugar- and fermentation-dependent, and then they multiply and spread, often unnoticed for quite some time. But the body has reacted even before a tumour forms, as the underlying cancer-causing conditions affect the entire organism. In order to nip it in the bud it’s important to recognise the very early symptoms and other pointers, contributing factors and habits. Here are some important ones, some of which might surprise you.

-Do you have a sweet tooth?
-Do you come down with colds and infections often?
-Do you get very tired?
-Do you have a craving for meat, eggs, dairy, fish?
-Do you exist on a typical western diet?
-Do you eat fried food?
-Do you eat your vegetables cooked instead of raw?
-Is there stress in your life?
-Have you lived through a trauma? Do you suffer from depression?
-Do you have late nights or sleepless nights often?
-Do you drink alcohol, coffee, tea rather than clean water and fresh juices?
-Are you overweight?
-Have you been exposed to numerous x-rays or radiation?
-Have you undergone hormonal treatment especially HRT?
-Do you use plastic wrapping or other materials with your food storage and preparation?
-Do you drink tap water, or bottled water from plastic bottles?
-Do you suffer from chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, or allergies?
-Is your digestion often congested?
-Do you avoid exposure to sun (Vitamin D)?
-Do you take antibiotics and pharmaceutical products often or even regularly?
-Do you use regular shampoo, skin care products, deodorant, tooth paste?
-Are you a couch potato whose physical exercise consists only of trips to the fridge and back?
-Do you suffer from a persistent cough?
-Do you have blood in your stool or urine?
-Have you found a lump, or do you have swollen glands?
-Has a wart or mole changed?
-Do you have sores that don’t heal?
-Do you experience pain that never goes away?
-etc etc

Please note that the above symptoms can be indicative of a variety of illnesses; if however you can come around to the thinking that there is in fact only one illness, then you can more clearly recognise the one natural solution.

What you need to do is:
-Stop making cancer and disease.
-Detox very thoroughly (physically and mentally-emotionally).
-Build your immune system to maximum strength through truly right nutrition.
-Maintain your newly found health continually in these natural ways.

So whether you use prevention or need to treat yourself instead, fully apply the natural self-healing ability of the body.

Click here for the full report from Natural News

Five Health Enhancing Foods That Don’t Seem Like Health Foods

September 26th, 2011

Natural News

By: Mike Adams

When observing the typical diet of American consumers, with all the fried foods, aspartame-laced “diet” products and pasteurized, hormone-ridden dairy products that typical people consume, I sometimes ask myself a question that perhaps you’ve pondered, too: What on Earth is keeping all these people alive?

The answers may surprise you. Hidden inside the typical western diet of highly-toxic processed foods are gems of natural medicine that you’d never suspect are really health foods. So here, I’ve assembled a short list of the five most powerful health-enhancing foods that don’t seem like health foods but which are quite possibly the one remaining source of natural medicines for mainstream consumers.

#1 – Mustard

Mustard, believe it or not, is a medicinal paste made from the seed of the mustard plant. It’s a superfood that’s been around for at least 5,000 years, and it’s one of the few common sources of cancer-busting selenium, a trace mineral often missing from over-farmed soils. (http://www.naturalnews.com/030916_m…)

Mustard is known to help in reducing migraines, and it’s a natural anti-fungal and antiseptic. Another benefit of mustard is that it’s never made with MSG or yeast extract. Mustard products — even conventional products from non-health-food companies — are still very healthful to consume.

You can also make your own mustard using nothing more than a Vita-Mix blender. Check out this handy video where Annmarie Gianni shows you how to make raw mustard:
http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=8…

(Jump to 2:45 to skip the crowd socializing part…)

As Kevin Gianni explains in this video, you can get bulk mustard seeds from Mountain Rose Herbs, one of the top suppliers of bulk natural products: www.MountainRoseHerbs.com

#2 – Cole Slaw

Cole slaw is made out of one of the most powerful natural medicines in the food kingdom: Raw cabbage. (http://www.naturalnews.com/032377_c…)

Raw cabbage is a proven cure for stomach ulcers. It’s also an amazing anti-cancer food with that can help prevent (or even reverse) many types of cancer. Throughout the history of the civilized world, cabbage has been one of the most medicinal foods ever consumed. It’s also good for you when cooked (cabbage soup) or fermented (sauerkraut).

Check out this story we recently published about the astounding health benefits of fermented cabbage: http://www.naturalnews.com/033659_s…

Cabbage is rich in indole-3-carbinol (I3C), one of its many anti-cancer nutrients. Click here to read more about I3C: http://www.naturalnews.com/023081_i…

It’s best to make your own cole slaw at home, but if you purchase store-bought cole slaw, be sure to avoid processed ingredients often used in cheaper cole slaw recipes such as high-fructose corn syrup and canola oil (which is often GMO).

#3 – Cinnamon, cloves, rosemary, paprika and other spices

Nearly all the pungent cooking spices are actually powerful medicines.

Cinnamon, for example, helps regulate blood sugar in diabetics (http://www.naturalnews.com/031133_c…). Cloves are the No. 1 source for the highest density of antioxidants found in the entire food supply. (Yes, they have a higher ORAC value than any other food or spice.) (http://www.naturalnews.com/028518_c…)

Rosemary is a powerful digestive tonic and internal detoxification herb. Ginger is legendary as an immune-boosting, circulation-enhancing tonic herb that’s also fantastic for beating winter colds and flu. Ginger even works to relieve muscle pain! (http://www.naturalnews.com/029986_g…)

If you’re into curry, then you’ll be glad to know that turmeric, the main ingredient in curry, is also an amazing source of natural medicines. It’s a powerful anti-cancer as well as an anti-inflammatory medicine. If you really want great pricing on curry powder and other spices in bulk, visit a Middle Eastern food store in your local area, where these aromatic spices are often sold at the best prices in town.

In Southern and Midwestern cuisine, barbeque sauce is a surprisingly good source of bitter alkaloids and health-enhancing spices (often including mustard and paprika), but this is only true with the rich, homemade sauces, not the processed “Kraft Foods” sauces (which are usually loaded with sweeteners and highly processed ingredients).

Nearly all the common spices you find in grocery stores are medicinal foods. But avoid common table salt (or white “sea salt”) because it’s just a processed, refined combination of two poisons. The only salt you should regularly consume is a full-spectrum salt that’s off-white in color, such as Celtic salt or Royal Himalayan Pink Crystal salt (http://store.naturalnews.com/index….).

#4 – Raisins

Raisins may not sound super cool, but if you think about what they really are, it becomes obvious how powerful they can be as natural medicine. Raisins are dried grapes, of course, meaning they contain all the natural medicine of grape skins.

Remember: Most of the medicine in grapes is found in the skin (and the seeds, but most raisins are made from seedless grapes). This is why it’s so important to buy only organic raisins, because grapes sprayed with fungicides have low levels of resveratrol. Organic grapes have the highest levels of resveratrol, which is one of the most miraculous natural medicines in the world (http://www.naturalnews.com/033349_r…).

Raisins are also very high in naturally-occurring antioxidants, making them a fantastic overall source of nutrition. When consumed with nuts, their glycemic index is slowed, so I recommend eating raisins with things such as pecans or walnuts (both of which superfoods in their own way, as you’ll see below).

#5 – Common nuts: Walnuts, pecans, peanuts and more

Once again, nuts may not be on your list of the “coolest” foods, but they probably should be: Walnuts are an amazing natural medicine that helps reduce the risk of heart attacks and cardiovascular disease. They’re very high in natural antioxidants and also help reduce the risk of prostate cancer (http://www.naturalnews.com/028584_w…).

Pecans boost brain protection and also help lower cholesterol levels (http://www.naturalnews.com/031815_p…). Almonds are now being widely used to make almond milk (a natural anti-cancer milk beverage), and even peanuts are now making a comeback as a health food (http://www.naturalnews.com/024925_p…).

Just remember: When you buy nuts, raw is best because heat processing destroys the natural medicine found in foods. Avoid “salted” nuts because they’re almost always salted with toxic sodium chloride (simple table salt). Avoid “flavored” nuts because they almost always — yes, nearly ALWAYS — are made with MSG flavor enhancers such as yeast extract or autolyzed proteins.

Just look for plain, simple, unsalted nuts… then find ways to work those into your recipes or smoothies. I like to blend cashews into smoothies to give them a creamy milk-like flavor!

The five common health foods in review

So there you have it, the five health foods that you probably didn’t even know were health foods!

The good news about these is that they’re available in virtually every grocery store in North America (and around the world). Once again, they are:

• Mustard
• Cole Slaw
• Common spices: Cinnamon, cloves, paprika, etc.
• Raisins
• Walnuts, pecans, almonds and other nuts

Eat more of these (and less processed junk food) and you’ll be healthier as a result!

Click here for the full report from Natural News

The Kevin Trudeau Show: 9-24-11

Today, find out who Kevin calls the biggest drug pushers in America, and what the solution is to fix all the problems in this country!

Plus, the author of Undateable, Anne Coyle, stops by to reveal the secret list of over 311 things that perfectly eligible guys manage to wear, say, or do to make themselves completely undateable. Click here to learn more about Anne Coyle and her hilarious, but overly educational book!

Health:
Monsanto GM Seed Ban Overturned By US Supreme Court
Radiation Causes Breast Cancer
Pain Relievers Can Raise Heart Risks
10 Foods You Should Never Eat
Eating Disorder Label Leaves Many Untreated
Trans Fats and Partially Hydrogenated poison
People Are Finally Waking Up And Looking To Alternative Medicine
Once Scarce, H1N1 Vaccines Now Trashed

Government:
Obama’s Aunt Wins Asylum, Stays In US
Fake Pilot Flew Passenger Jets For 13 Years
Too Many Judges Want Authority Beyond Their Constitutional Role

NWO:
Feds Find Pfizer Too Big to Nail

Wealth:
Spirit Airlines To Charge $45 For Carry-Ons

Everything Kevin:
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Mother Disciplined After Confronting Son’s Bullies

September 23, 2011

CBS Minnesota

By: Esme Murphy

A mother who confronted two boys who bullied her 10-year-old son has been banned from her son’s Minneapolis school and even her son’s bus stop for the rest of the year.

Tanya Sydney said she does not regret taking actions into her own hand to keep her son from being a victim.

Last week, fifth-grader Sovante Griffin told his Mom and Stepdad he was being bullied on the school bus. Sydney said he told her boys were hitting him, so she took matters into her own hands. She went to the bus stop the next day and confronted the bus driver.

“He told me ‘I am doing the best I can, I can’t be in 50 million places at once,’” Sydney said. She then got on the bus and yelled at the two boys that Griffin said were the bullies. “Specifically to the two boys I said you need to keep your hands to yourselves,” she said.

The driver ordered her off the bus. She and Griffin then walked to Lake Nokomis Community School. Sydney said when she and Griffin got to school they were met by the school’s police liaison officer, the principal and a transportation supervisor.

Sydney said the supervisor pulled out a photograph of another African-American woman who he said he created a disturbance on a school bus last year.

“That is when the transportation guy apologized and said ‘I assumed you were the woman from last year,’” she said

Her son and the two bullies later had to apologize to each other. Sydney got a letter from the principal saying she is banned from school grounds and the bus stop for the rest of the school year.

“It’s mindboggling,” she said.

She has filed an appeal to the year-long ban with the Minneapolis School Board. Sydney said she does not regret her actions.

“There are too many stories of children getting bullied. I don’t want it to get to the point were he is scared to get on this bus and he can’t be successful,” she said.

Griffin has gotten back on the bus this week and has been going to school without incident. The school district released a statement on the matter Wednesday, saying they can’t comment on the incident because of data privacy laws.

“Because of data privacy laws, we are unable to share any particulars about this matter. For the safety of students and staff, we are committed to following the MPS policies regarding bus protocol, including only allowing MPS students to board school buses; it is not our protocol to allow parents or other adults to board school buses. Maintaining a safe and secure environment in the school district, including our school buses, is a top priority.

Minneapolis Public Schools encourages parents to contact their school immediately if there are bullying concerns. Our schools take allegations concerning bullying very seriously and have a protocol to address these types of situations,” the statement reads.

Click Here For The Full Report From CBS Minnesota

Soros: US Is Already In Double-Dip Recession

September 23, 2011

CNBC

By: Reporting Maria Bartiromo, Writing Antonya Allen

Billionaire investor George Soros said he believed the United States was already experiencing the pain of a double dip recession and that Republican opposition to Obama’s fiscal stimulus plans was to blame for sluggish growth.

Asked by CNBC if he believed the US risks falling into a double-dip recession , Soror said: “I think we are in it already.”

“We have a slowdown and basically a conflict about whether the rich ought to pay taxes to create jobs or not and there was a deal in the making which would have balanced the budget over the long term, but would have allowed short-term fiscal stimulus, which would have been the right policy,” Soros said in an interview late Wednesday.

“That was rejected, it fell apart… so it will come to the electorate next year to decide what they want,” he added.

Euro zone policymakers have repeatedly followed the wrong policy shifts, creating a situation in Europe “more dangerous” to the global financial system than the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, Soros said.

“It is a more dangerous situation [than Lehman Bros] and I think that the authorities, when push comes to shove, will do whatever it takes to hold the system together, because the alternative is just too terrible to contemplate,” he added.

A number of smaller euro zone nations could default and leave the single currency area, Soros said, but he warned if it happened on an ad hoc basis, there would be considerable risk to the global economy.

“I think that you could have two or three of the small countries default or leave the euro provided it is prepared and done in an orderly way,” Soros said.

“If it were to happen unprepared it could actually disrupt the global financial system, but that’s why it’s important to allow for it to happen and then those countries have a genuine choice it doesn’t mean they are being pushed out.”

Soros said he believed the so-called ‘Troika’ of the EU, ECB and IMF would release the next tranche of aid to heavily indebted Greece, but he stressed the creation of a European bailout fund would determine whether Greece received another bailout in December.

Click Here For The Full Report From CNBC

Perry’s Support Of Tuition For Children Of Illegals Puts Him In GOP Crosshairs

September 23, 2011

The Washington Times

By: Seth McLaughlin

Rick Perry went out on a limb Thursday by refusing to back off his support as Texas governor for granting in-state tuition to some of the children of illegal immigrants, and painting critics of the law as heartless — remarks that landed him in the crosshairs of his GOP rivals.

The three-term Texas governor said he still supports the program “greatly” and that the Lone Star State needs “to be educating these children because otherwise they’ll “become a drag on society.”

“If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart,” Mr. Perry said.

The stance also put Mr. Perry at odds with a chunk of the audience, which booed, and opened him up to attacks from the Republican field, including former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who said the law carries an annual price tag of $22,000 per student and acts as a magnet for illegal immigrants.

“If you’re a United States citizen from any one of the other 49 states, you have to pay $100,000 more,” Mr. Romney said, alluding to the difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition at the University of Texas over four years. “That doesn’t make sense to me. That kind of magnet draws people into this country to get that education, to get the $100,000 break. It makes no sense.”

Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania piled on the criticism and called Mr. Perry “soft on illegal immigration” and alluded to a Perry speech from 2001 at which the Texan extolled the virtue of studying a “binational health insurance” program between border areas of Texas and Mexico.

“I don’t even think Barack Obama would be for binational health insurance,” the former Pennsylvania Senator quipped, sparking laughter from the audience. “So I think he’s very weak on this issue of American sovereignty and protecting our borders and not being a magnet for illegal immigration.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota also said it was time to end “the magnet” of U.S. health and education benefits, which she said attracts illegal immigrants.

The dust-up over illegal immigration came toward the tail end of the debate here at the sprawling Orange Country Convention Center, where the candidates generally agreed over the notion of defeating Mr. Obama in the 2012 election and over devolving federal powers to the states, including such whole agencies as the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency.

During the two-hour affair, the contenders fielded various questions over health care, the economy and foreign policy — and each each of them appeared to score points with the audience along the way.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who is running third in many national polls, vowed to veto every single bill that violates the 10th Amendment of the Constitution.

“Government is too big in Washington, D.C.,” the 12-term Texas Representative said. “It’s runaway. We have no controls of the spending, taxes, regulations, no control on the Federal Reserve printing money.”

Mrs. Bachmann promised to repeal ‘Obamacare’ and continued to attack the executive order Mr. Perry signed in 2007 that mandated that young girls be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted HPV virus, which is known to cause cervical cancer.

Defending himself, Mr. Perry stumbled over his history with a woman who later died of cervical cancer, identified later as 31-year-old Heather Burchman.

“I got lobbied on this issue. I got lobbied by a 31 year old young lady who had stage 4 cervical cancer,” said Perry. “I spent a lot of time with her. She came by my office. She talked to me about this program. I readily admitted we should have had an opt-in but I don’t know what part of opt out most parents don’t get and the fact is I erred on the side of life and I will always err on the side of life as a governor as a president of the United States.”

But Mr. Perry, according to an ABC News fact-check, only met Ms. Burcham after he issued his executive order in February 2007. The meeting occurred when Ms. Burcham was lobbying against a movement in the Texas Legislature to reverse the governor’s order.

On Fox News after the debate, Mrs. Bachmann brought up the misstatement and told host Sean Hannity that it will be a problem for Mr. Perry.

Former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain, a crowd favorite, won applause for sharing his story about how he survived Stage 4 cancer, but would be dead under President Obama’s health-care plan. He said “Obamacare” would have resulted in delays for bureaucratic approval on his treatment schedule.

He also pushed his plan to replace the current tax code with three 9 percent levies — on businesses, personal income and sales.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said he’d tie unemployment benefits to jobs training program, while Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman called for the troops to be brought home from Afghanistan.

Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson made the most of his first appearance in a post-Labor day debate, calling for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution and vowing to veto any bills where spending exceeds revenues.

The former two-term governor also sparked laughter from the audience after telling the audience, “My next-door neighbor’s two dogs have created more shovel-ready projects than this president.”

Fireworks, meanwhile, continued to go off between Mr. Perry and Mr. Romney, who traded barbs over Social Security, illegal immigration and jobs — all in attempt to cast their top rival as the proverbial flip-flopper.

Mr. Romney delivered the opening salvo, suggesting Mr. Perry is retreating from statements he made in his book, “Fed Up,” where Mr. Romney said he suggested Social Security is unconstitutional and should be returned to the states.

“There’s a Rick Perry out there that’s saying that it — almost to quote — it says that the federal government shouldn’t be in the pension business, that it’s unconstitutional and it should be returned to the states,” Mr. Romney said. “So you’d better find that Rick Perry and get him to stop saying that.”

Mr. Perry retorted that Mr. Romney is hard to pin down when it comes to mandating health insurance, which he did as governor of Massachusetts in 2006.

“As a matter of fact, between books, your hard copy book, you said that it was exactly what the American people needed to have — that’s “Romneycare” — given to them as you had in Massachusetts,” Mr. Perry said. “Then in your paperback, you took that line out.”

Mr. Romney shot back, “I said no such thing” and went on to defend his plan, casting it as something much different than the president’s health care overhaul.

Later on, Mr. Perry tried to land a haymaker, but stumbled through what appeared to be a rehearsed line.

“I think Americans just don’t know sometimes which Mitt Romney they’re dealing with,” he said, alluding to Mr. Romney’s stances on guns and abortion, which have evolved over time. “I mean, we’ll wait until tomorrow and see which Mitt Romney we’re really talking to tonight.”

Mr. Huntsman summed up the feisty exchanges in the final minutes of the debate. “I’m tempted to say that when all is said and done, the two guys standing in the middle here, Romney and Perry, aren’t going to be around because they’re going to bludgeon each other to death.”

Click Here For The Full Report From The Washington Times

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