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Laws and regulations remain on the books that could permit federal agencies to deny due process to any business or industry that politicians seek to scourge.

Americans were jolted last week to learn that the Joe Biden administration viewed purchasing a Bible as a potential terrorist warning sign. Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, revealed that the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network stretched its “suspicious behavior” definition to include purchasing a Bass Pro Shop hat, as well as items sold by Cabella’s and Dick’s Sporting Goods.

If you’ve bought a gun or ammo since 2021, Team Biden bureaucrats may have automatically classified you as a “potential active shooter.” Or maybe your plane ticket purchases triggered the latest “lone actor/homegrown violent extremism” indicators.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of Washington precedents for this type of idiocy. The vast array of federal levers enable politicians to squeeze any target they choose. The sheer power of covert federal financial dictates was revealed by one of the most corrupt schemes of the Barack Obama administration.

In 2011, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) sent banks a new list of “high risk” industries and clients. Banks were told to avoid providing services to firearms and ammo companies, pornography stars and producers, coin dealers, online tobacco retailers, payday loan operators, and other targets. Many observers were mystified at the categories of companies the FDIC denigrated. A congressional report later complained that the FDIC jumbled together legitimate businesses “with inherently pernicious or patently illegal activities such as Ponzi schemes, debt consolidation scams, and drug paraphernalia.”

In 2013, the Justice Department launched Operation Choke Point, a quasi-covert campaign to “choke” politically disfavored businesses. The Justice Department “radically and unjustifiably expanded” its subpoena authority under a 1989 antifraud law, according to a 2014 congressional report. The Department issued fifty subpoenas to banks and financial institutions which had failed to banish accounts on the FDIC “high risk” list. American Bankers Association president Frank Keating complained, “If a bank doesn’t shut down a questionable account when directed to do so, Justice slaps the institution with a penalty for wrongdoing that may or may not have happened. The government is compelling banks to deny service to unpopular but perfectly legal industries by threatening penalties.” Former FDIC chief William Isaac declared, “Bankers are being cowed into submission by an oppressive regulatory regime.” Issac wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal headlined “Don’t Like an Industry? Send a Message to Its Bankers” showing how the Operation Choke Point was targeting firearm and firework vendors.

Federal threats swayed banks to blindside thousands of their business customers. Cigar sellers and manufacturers were clobbered as collateral victims. A Daily Beast story headlined “The Banks’ War on Porn” reported that “hundreds of current and former porn stars” received “curt letters of account termination without further explanation” from their banks. A top FDIC official insisted that the agency’s letters to Congress on the crackdown “always mention pornography when discussing payday lenders and other industries, in an effort to convey a ‘good picture regarding the unsavory nature of the businesses at issue,’” according to a 2014 congressional report.

For some federal regulators and prosecutors, guns were even worse than smut. The FDIC notified banks to “‘prohibit’ payment processing for firearms merchants” and described “loans to firearms dealers as ‘undesirable,’” according to a 2014 congressional report. The National Rifle Association complained that banks were “refusing to do business with legitimate law-abiding companies in the firearm industry . . . without regard to the specific company’s credit, criminal or financial history.” Hundreds of firearms and ammo companies saw their bank accounts frozen or terminated. Representative Sean Duffy (R-WI) complained that federal officials were “weaponizing government to meet their ideological beliefs.” Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) declared, “Unelected bureaucrats at the Department of Justice, the FDIC and other agencies set out to kill legal businesses by starving them of access to financial institutions.”

The Obama administration acted as if its regulatory targets did not deserve due process, and the program ravaged far and wide before it was exposed. Emails from FDIC officials showed they were “scheming to influence banks’ decisions on who to do business . . . [to ensure] banks ‘get the message’ about the businesses the regulators don’t like, and pressuring banks to cut credit or close those accounts, effectively discouraging entire industries,” according to an analysis published in the Daily Signal.

Federal officials continually denied the extent of the crackdown, but congressional and media investigations exposed their deceit. In 2015, FDIC chairman Martin Gruenberg admitted to Congress that “bank examiners had misinterpreted regulatory guidance to suggest that entire categories of businesses [including firearms dealers] should be barred from traditional banking services.” But the program continued plugging along until the Donald Trump administration ended the witch hunt.

Unfortunately, legions of laws and regulations remain on the books that could permit federal agencies to deny due process to any business or industry that politicians seek to scourge. The House Judiciary Committee will likely soon reveal other follies and outrages committed by Biden’s financial regulators. When it comes to Uncle Sam, “no matter how cynical you get, it’s never enough to keep up,” as comedian Lily Tomlin said.

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Alex Jones: We’ve Moved Beyond The Crossroads, It’s Time To Choose A Side

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“Anything that happens over there with Israel, we’re going to get dragged into it. We’re going to be funding it. It’s going to be increasing our deficits, more fiscal stimulus which is inflationary, and that it is going to result in bigger deficits and more money printing — all of this just accelerates the problem now.”

As the conflict continues to accelerate in Gaza and beyond, 2024 is set for a somewhat terrifying boom in global uncertainty — and will take gold prices with it.

The conflict has escalated to involve neighboring regions, with the potential for further regional destabilization. Israel’s military operations are now focusing on Hamas’ southern and central strongholds, while regional tensions are heightened by the involvement of non-state actors such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Iran-aligned Houthis. This threatens regional stability and could also put further pressure on global supply chains if it interferes with Red Sea shipping routes. In response, gold is holding strong after rocketing upward from its October 2023 lows when fighting broke out:

The Biden Administration has vowed to strike back against the Houthis, promising a “sustained campaign” in Yemen that definitively ups the ante on US involvement in the conflict from a proxy war to a direct one. Having barely just finished handing billions to Ukraine in an already-widening fiscal deficit, the escalations in the Middle East carry all the signs of a protracted conflict. Without lenders to finance US involvement, more war that the US can’t afford means more money printing to fund it. As Peter Schiff said late last year:

“Anything that happens over there with Israel, we’re going to get dragged into it. We’re going to be funding it. It’s going to be increasing our deficits, more fiscal stimulus which is inflationary, and that it is going to result in bigger deficits and more money printing — all of this just accelerates the problem now.”

He predicted as much at the start of the Ukraine war and in the Middle East, it’s looking like more of the same. With parallels to 9/11, the October attacks in Israel that launched the conflict could prove to be a 9/11-type “no going back” moment for the region, leading to potentially years of fighting and reshuffling the global chessboard. As Peter Schiff said last October on his podcast, soon after war broke out and gold resumed an upward trajectory:

“The stakes are high, and the implications are serious. Iran’s motives in the background, seeking to disrupt the Israel-Saudi deal. The peace treaty now hangs in the balance, a significant development in an already tense region.”

The election year factor adds another wrench, with an incumbent administration set to embrace war with the hopes of artificially juicing GDP with rising defense stocks. Though disastrous for the people in these countries and terrible for the dollar, all of this meddling points to record highs for gold in 2024 as the world dumps dollars and exposure to US debt and flees to monetary safety.

Record domestic oil production in 2024 might be helping provide a small temporary buffer between Americans and higher gas prices as a result of the war and OPEC’s supply cuts last year. Combined with other non-OPEC countries like Brazil and Guyana pumping record amounts, the pressure is on OPEC to get some of that market share back, which could drive oil prices lower still in the near term. However, OPEC still expects demand to skyrocket as it contemplates further cuts due to economic development in China, and pushback on quixotic “net zero” policies driving up the need for fuel between now and 2025.

But current highs in domestic oil production won’t solve the growing US debt bubble and isn’t enough on its own to keep gold prices down. That was true before the fighting started, and it’s even truer as the conflict appears solidly on track to escalate and rip through an already unstable region. Any relief in the price of oil is likely to be temporary, especially as demand increases and money printing to fund the war puts further stress on the dollar.

While the USD is still the “best of the worst” compared to alternatives like the euro, before the war, foreign countries like China were already offloading US Treasuries, and trillions more will soon need to be refinanced. That’s just one wad of gunpowder in the global debt keg that was already looming before the outbreak of war made a bad situation worse:

“In short, the US Treasury is ensnared in a debt trap which can only result in foreigners spurning US Treasuries and the dollar itself.”

In fact, China’s Treasury holdings dropped a whopping 40% last year to prop up the yuan, marking just one factor in the increasing trend of global de-dollarization threatening the USD’s status as the global reserve currency. While some of China’s debt holdings were replaced with mortgage-backed securities, those could encounter trouble as well if the US housing market dumps in the wake of a frothy year for real estate.

The logical outcome of more war, more global uncertainty, a supply crunch for oil, and election year madness? A financial crisis and accompanying global gold rush as dollars get dumped and scores of desperate investors and central banks move to protect their wealth with history’s favorite yellow metal.

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Alex Jones: We’ve Moved Beyond The Crossroads, It’s Time To Choose A Side

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There has never been this much support for Texas independence

Infowars founder Alex Jones released a message on ? Thursday, asking, “Should Texas secede from the US and become its own country? Should we elect @elonmusk as its first president?”

Musk has been living in Texas for a few years now after leaving the Democrat hellhole of California in 2020 and moving several of his lucrative businesses to the red state.

The world’s wealthiest person has proven to be a man of the people by bringing free speech back to the Internet via ? and calling attention to topics the NWO would like to prevent the public from discussing.

Meanwhile, Texas is the largest continental state in America, the 8th largest economy in the world, produces more oil than all but four nations, and has already been an independent nation in the past.

Of course, the invasion of America via the wide-open southern border is an emergency alone worth removing Texas from being under the control of the globalist-captured federal government.

The video Jones commented on was a year-old interview between The American Journal host Harrison Smith and the President of the Texas Nationalist Movement Dan Miller making the case for the Lone Star State to leave the union.

With “secede” and “TEXIT” recently trending on social media due to the ongoing feud between Texas and the Biden administration, it was perfect timing for Miller to make another appearance on the Infowars transmission.

Miller and Smith discussed the latest explosion of support for Texas secession on Thursday’s exclusive broadcast of The American Journal:

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America is being invaded and your lives are in danger!

Dr. Chris Martenson joins Alex Jones live via Skype to describe what he’s witnessed south of the border, where people from across the world are northward bound to invade the United States with help from the UN and Soros-backed NGOs.

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Citizens of the United States and other western countries who believe they have “god given rights” are in for a rude awakening according to the World Economic Forum which has declared that human beings have […]

The post WEF Tells Americans ‘Your God Given Rights Are a Fiction’… ‘You Will Be Happier as Slaves’ appeared first on The People’s Voice.

Texas governor explains legal side of his feud with the Biden administration over razor wire barriers installed on the border.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) joined Fox News Thursday to break down the legal side of his fight with the Biden administration to preserve his state’s sovereignty, as the feds argue they can tear down razor wire barriers protecting the state’s border.

“Regardless of what federal statute may exist, the Supremacy Law means that the Constitution itself is the Supreme Law of the land,” Abbott said. “The Constitution itself provides Texas with a right of self-defense in this case because the United States has abandoned its responsibility to defend Texas.”

“Now I think maybe we will get it to the Fifth Circuit on its merits, where I believe we can win,” Gov. Abbott continued. “And I do believe that when it gets to the Supreme Court, we can win…I don’t know how and why the justices voted the way they did, but there seemed to be four justices who indicated at least an appetite to hear the case as is.”

Gov. Abbott posted his interview with Fox News to Twitter, declaring, “Texas has a constitutional right to defend and protect itself. We will continue to hold the line.”

The governor’s remarks come one day after he invoked Texas’ constitutional right to self-defense in a statement, writing, “The federal government has broken the compact between the United States and the States.”

“The failure of the Biden administration to fulfill the duties by Article IV, § 4 has triggered Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which reserves to this State the right of self-defense. For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself,” Abbott wrote on Wednesday.

By Thursday, the governors of over 15 states pledged to support Texas in its fight with the feds.

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