UN Report Promotes Child Prostitution and Sexual Slavery

A report by the United Nations Development’s Program’s Global Commission on HIV and the Law, funded in part by a grant from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation, has a peculiar prescription for combating AIDS.  It calls on governments around the world to legalize prostitution, including child prostitution, and drug use.

World Congress of Families Managing Director Larry Jacobs observed: “This is insane.  The ‘reasoning,’ if it can even be called that, is that by criminalizing prostitution, governments promote the spread of AIDS. The report actually claims that women make a rational choice to sell their bodies, based on economic considerations, and should not be discouraged from doing so.  It also claims that age-of-consent laws violate the right of children to be similarly degraded and abused.”

Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina elected pope, takes name Pope Francis I

VATICAN CITY — Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected pope Wednesday, becoming the first pontiff from Latin America and taking the name Pope Francis I.

Appearing on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica a short time later, the new pope greeted a vast crowd gathered below in St. Peter’s Square with salutations in Italian and led a prayer for his predecessor, Benedict XVI.

“As you know, the duty of the conclave was to appoint a bishop of Rome, and it seems to me that my brother cardinals went to fetch him at the end of the world,” he said. “But here I am.”

Catholic Church Has New Pope; White Smoke Rises

Live video feed of the “Vatican Smoke Cam”:

Video Link

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Cardinals elected a new pope to lead the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics on Wednesday, overcoming deep divisions to select the 266th pope in a remarkably fast conclave.

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The pope, whose identity isn’t yet known, is due to emerge from the loggia overlooking St. Peter’s Square to deliver his first words as the Bishop of Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI in shock resignation

Pope Benedict XVI is to resign at the end of this month after nearly eight years as the head of the Catholic Church, saying he is too old to continue at the age of 85.

The unexpected development – the first papal resignation in nearly 600 years – surprised governments, Vatican-watchers and even his closest aides.

The Vatican says it expects a new Pope to be elected before Easter.

Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez in a coma ‘only kept alive by life support’ after cancer surgery

Should he go, look for his politicized favorite, Nicolas Maduro, to take the helm.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is in an induced coma being kept alive by life support following complications during cancer surgery, it was claimed today.

Sources at the hospital in Cuba where he is being treated told a Spanish newspaper he was showing ‘very weak’ vital signs, adding that doctors could decide to switch off the machines ‘at any moment’.

Allegedly melted bills a matter of national security, says Bank of Canada

OTTAWA – Disclosing details of behind-the-scenes discussions about tales of melting banknotes could endanger national security or international relations, says Canada’s central bank.

In response to a formal request from The Canadian Press, the Bank Of Canada released 134 pages of internal records — almost completely blanked out — concerning allegations its new polymer bills melted in the scorching summer sun.

2012 marked end of American greatness

America faces a seminal reality: We are broke, and we are getting broker by the day. This is the real “fiscal cliff” the country is about to jump off, not the artificial one consuming Washington. Instead of confronting our looming insolvency, the electorate voted to take the plunge. It ratified Mr. Obama’s drive to erect the equivalent of a Franco-German welfare state. Consider Obamacare, the massive stimulus, failed green-energy boondoggles, record numbers on food stamps, constant extensions of unemployment benefits, public housing subsidies, unprecedented government spending and free contraception.

Voters chose economic security over individual opportunity, handouts instead of self-reliance, statism over capitalism. Rather than rebuking Mr. Obama, they rewarded him.

Election 2012: How The Winner Will Destroy America

This couldn’t be any more correct as the left-right paradigm nowadays is a complete sham, as both candidates are the same. They will tell you whatever you want to hear and masqurade as whatever you want to see during the campaign while knowing 99% of the public doesn’t research the track record that concludes what will happen when elected. There is a systemic failure of the public and its ability to read between the lines or discern the core ideology of any candidate, their true beliefs and what drives them to accomplish their objectives, whatever that may be.

It’s truly a sad state of affairs when people choose who they believe will inflict the country with the least amount of damage. What’s more is that the public perpetuates the same mindset every four years expecting a different result — the definition of crazy according to some.

One element people can surely add to the author’s article here is that the “Silent Majority” everyone has talked about for decades is probably one of the most dangerous (non)-voting blocs in American history. Why? Because, as the first word in the adopted category name states, they’re silent do-nothings. Per usual, 2012 didn’t prove otherwise.

After all the hollow and uninspired elections that this country has suffered through over the past several decades, one might think that at some point long ago the American public would have finally struck a plateau of disenfranchisement; that we could sink no further into despondency, that there is a saturation limit to the corruption of our voting process.  Unfortunately, there has been no such luck.  I have to say that in all honesty I have never seen more people gut jumbled and disgusted with our electoral system than I have in 2012.  Sure, there is still a hyper-gullible segment of the populous that continues to play the game, but even those idiots are beginning to admit that the choices offered are dismal at best, catastrophic at worst.  The fog of the false Left/Right paradigm is starting to lift, and all that lay in its wake is a hoard of lost wide-eyed flabbergasted followers without a coattail or a talking point to cling to.  Sudanese refugees have a better chance of survival than these people do…

Catholic leaders gather to counter decline of faith

AFP – Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday opened a meeting of Roman Catholic Church leaders from around the world to debate how to counter rising secularism on the 50th anniversary of the momentous Second Vatican Council.

The synod of 262 archbishops, bishops and other senior clerics heard a call from the pope for a “new evangelism” for the Catholic Church, which is fast losing followers in Europe and feels increasingly discriminated against in many parts of the world.

Why Is Germany Collecting Taxes for the Catholic Church?

The German Catholic Bishops Conference issued a decree in September warning that those Germans who opted out of paying the country’s “church tax” would no longer be entitled to sacraments, religious burial or any part of parish life.

This “church tax” is a special tax collected in Germany and several other Western European nations that was introduced in the 19th century in compensation for the nationalization of religious property. All Germans who officially register as Catholics, Protestants or Jews on their tax documentation must pay a religious tax of 8 to 9 percent on their annual income tax bill.

Entitlement Spending Creates a ‘Nation of Takers’

As the economic crisis worsens, people are increasingly becoming dependent on the hand-outs and work ethic consequently goes downhill in exchange for the enticement of easy money. As a result, the quality of life in families is being eroded as the traditional role of both males and females in the household is increasingly undermined.

What’s more, is that one generation influences the next and at the moment we’re mislead to believe that a cut in crucial military spending will solve a problem it never created. Lets also not forget, as the study points out, how the unborn will shoulder the burden with an insurmountable debt that just cannot be paid back for generations.

Whether by some sort of cynical design or pure ignorance, the family unit — the core of America’s pride and social fabric, is being ripped apart. History shows that once a nation’s pride is destroyed, so goes the nation.

America’s entitlement spending is destroying the economy. But political economist Nicholas Eberstadt isn’t worried about that. In an article published in the Wall Street Journal August 31, Eberstadt argued that the effect entitlement spending is having on the nation’s character is far more dangerous.

He outlines a shocking increase in entitlement spending: 727 percent in the last 50 years. And that’s after adjusting for inflation and the increase in population.

“Within living memory, the federal government has become an entitlements machine,” he wrote. “As a day-to-day operation, it devotes more attention and resources to the public transfer of money, goods and services to individual citizens than to any other objective, spending more than for all other ends combined.”

In a longer version of his Journal essay, published by Templeton Press and available here, Eberstadt meticulously backs up his claims with a wealth of data that even his critics do not dispute.

The shocking facts run against the popular historical narrative. For example, Eberstadt points out that America’s defense spending places a smaller burden on America’s economy now than almost any point in the Cold War. America spends 4.8 percent of its economy on defense. In 1961, when President Dwight Eisenhower warned of a “military-industrial complex,” 9.4 percent of America’s gdp was spent on the military.

In fact, since September 11, it hasn’t been out-of-control military spending inflating America’s debt bomb, but escalating entitlement spending.

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Manhood was also directly attacked. “Before the age of entitlements, self-reliance and the work ethic were integral and indispensable elements of the ideal of manliness in America,” he wrote.

“Put simply the arrival of the entitlement society in America has coincided with a historically unprecedented exit from gainful work by adult men,” he continued. And once again, Eberstadt commands a battery of statistics. Most surprisingly, more able-bodied American men shirk work than in almost all of Europe, despite the Continent’s infamy for entitlement spending.

Eberstadt’s numbers also show that America is tolerating widespread cheating. In 1960, 455,000 people received government payments for disability. In 2011, it’s 8.6 million. Nearly half of all these payments go to people suffering “mood disorders” or sicknesses affecting “musculoskeletal system and the connective tissue,” like back pain. These two are almost impossible for doctors to diagnose.

The entitlement system draws millions of people into a lifestyle of lying and cheating. And Eberstadt doesn’t just blame the claimants of the disability pay. The doctors and health care workers that allow this are “collaborators,” as is the U.S. judicial system. American voters and politicians are “willing and often knowing enablers.”

Finally, Eberstadt shows that the system drafts society into the robbery of “a pool of citizens who can offer not resistance to such schemes: the unborn descendants of today’s entitlement-seeking population.”

Full article: Entitlement Spending Creates a ‘Nation of Takers’ (The Trumpet)

7 Reasons This Election Doesn’t Matter

Click the link for the full breakdown on each challenge.

Regardless of who wins the election, America faces some tough decisions.

Challenge 1: Can you conceptualize $1 trillion?

Challenge 2: America’s massive debt

Challenge 3: America’s uncontrollable welfare dependency

Challenge 4: America’s banking system is shot.

Challenge 5: The jobs are gone forever.

Challenge 6: America’s education system is failing.

Challenge 7: The economic cost of America’s moral slide.

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Regardless of who America chooses at the ballot box, its moral slide will not be turned. At best, it can be slowed. There are 230-plus years of U.S. history that prove it.

America’s debt, its welfare mentality, its crumbling education system and morals are all the product of America’s collective choices. We are now eating the fruit of those choices. Economic indicators suggest another economic downturn has already started. A greater economic depression is on the way, and there is little that can be done to mitigate it.

America is past the point of no return. America’s past prosperity will not return until the whole economic system has been wiped out. Tough times are coming on America, but once through, the country will be able to start anew.

Full article: 7 Reasons This Election Doesn’t Matter (The Trumpet)

U.S. Poverty Level Expected to Reach New High

The ranks of America’s poor are on track to climb to levels not seen in 50 years, reports the Associated Press. Essentially all improvements against poverty since the 1960s will be lost.

Poverty rates are calculated by the Census Bureau. The Census figures for 2011 will be released in the fall, just weeks before the November elections.

After surveying economists, think tanks and academics—both nonpartisan and those with either liberal or conservative outlooks—there was a broad consensus of opinion that the poverty rate will rise from the 2010 figure of 15.1 percent to 15.7 percent.

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Alarmingly, poverty is spreading across many groups of Americans. Included in the number are underemployed workers, suburban families and, of course, the poorest poor. Yet there is a new poor—all those discouraged workers giving up on the job market and hoping their unemployment benefits don’t run out.

Suburban America is seeing increases in poverty. Three hard-hit areas are the political battleground states of Colorado, Florida and Nevada. Many voters in these states are now coping with the new norm of living hand to mouth.

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The Associated Press recounted the history of one Jefferson County suburbanite. “I grew up going to Hawaii every summer. Now I am here, applying for assistance because it is hard to make ends meet. It’s very hard to adjust,” said Laura Fritz, 27, of Wheat Ridge, Colorado, describing her slide from rich to poor as she filled out aid forms at a county center.

Fritz grew up wealthy in the Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch, but her financial security faltered after her parents lost a significant amount of money in the housing crash. Left holding a half-million-dollar house, her parents began living on food stamps and Fritz’s college money disappeared. She tried joining the Army but was injured during basic training.

Now she’s living on disability, with an infant daughter and a boyfriend who can’t find work as a landscaper. They are struggling to pay their $650 a month rent with his unemployment checks. They don’t know how they would get by without aid as they hope for the job market to improve.

The specter of poverty is looming over millions like Laura Fritz who are likely to find themselves falling far short when government subsidies from unemployment insurance, Medicaid, welfare and food stamps diminishes.

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The Times reported on July 14, “The economic storms of recent years have raised concerns about growing inequality and questions about a core national faith, that even Americans of humble backgrounds have a good chance of getting ahead. Most of the discussion has focused on labor market forces like falling blue–collar wages and ravish Wall Street pay.”

But notice what researchers are now saying is one of the primary causes of poverty. The New York Times reports that it is changes in marriage patterns—as opposed to changes in individual earnings—that accounts for as much as 40 percent of the growth in certain measures of financial hardship. It only makes sense that unmarried mothers with children have it a lot tougher financially.

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Marriage shapes a nation’s economic reality more than people realize. While economic woes can speed marital decline—out-of-work men are not very marriageable—marital decline compounds economic woes, forcing the needy to go it alone.

Currently about 41 percent of births in the United States occur outside of marriage, which is an incredibly steep rise over the 17 percent of just three decades ago.

Across Middle America, single motherhood has moved from an anomaly to a norm with head-turning speed. Motherhood outside marriage is growing fastest in the lower reaches of the white middle class.

Full article: U.S. Poverty Level Expected to Reach New High (The Trumpet)

Loudon’s Upcoming US Speaking Tour

For those that are interested, global political expert Trevor Loudon of the New Zeal blog will be speaking in the United States with the aim, as he puts it:

My aim is to alert Americans to the high level of communist and socialist infiltration of their government and the huge national security implications if this state of affairs is allowed to continue.

Locations include, but aren’t limited to: Washington DC, Oregon, California, Georgia, Florida, Colorado, Arizona, Oklahoma, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Ohio.

Mr. Loudon’s patriotic, continuious and persistent efforts to reach the public and inform them on the danger these political ideologies pose to America would make a visit entirely worthwhile.

The following video is a sample of the discussions you’re likely to hear:

Note: Global Geopolitics will never ask you for money, therefore assistance via donations to Trevor Loudon is not a requirement of this site and are purely based upon your own merit. This post serves as an informational piece.

Full article: Loudon’s Upcoming US Speaking Tour (New Zeal)

Mexico’s Drug War: 50,000 Dead in 6 Years

Note: As the warning below suggests, please do not click the link if you are sensitive or possibly offended by the photos.

Although nothing new for at least six years now (More than six years, if you get you news elsewhere rather than being shown what is happening from your television set that tells you only half the story), this is in America’s backyard, and which at times spills over across the border. College students should think twice about their “spring break” destinations and families who take cruises to destinations in Mexico, as well. The country is in shambles, the citizens afraid to go out at night in certain areas. The police are rendered absolutely useless, as well as the Mexican military at times, if not infilrated by these same drug gangs or as corrupt.

If you believe it’s a problem only in Mexico and couldn’t happen here, think again. As mentioned, it’s spilling over and parts of U.S. territory are not under our control. Consider what was mentioned at one time by a U.S. Border agent:

“To say that this area is out of control is an understatement,” said an agent who patrols the area and asked not to be named. “We (federal border agents), as well as the Pima County Sheriff Office and the Bureau of Land Management, can attest to that.”

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In these areas, which are south and west of Tucson, sources said there are “cartel scouts galore” watching the movements of federal, state and local law enforcement, from the border all the way up to Interstate 8.

“Every night we’re getting beaten like a pinata at a birthday party by drug, alien smugglers,” a second federal agent told Fox News by e-mail. “The danger is out there, with all the weapons being found coming northbound…. someone needs to know about this!”

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“We are unable to work any traffic, because they have us forward deployed,” the agent said. “We are unable to work the traffic coming out of the mountains. That traffic usually carries weapons and dope, too, again always using stolen vehicles.”

A land full of great culture, people, rich history and traditions has now evolved from what was once a great country to one with still-great culture, people, history and traditions oppressed by drug cartels and trapped in a prison they call home.

The year is 2012 and this is the new Mexico:

Since Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón began an all-out assault on drug cartels in 2006, more than 50,000 people have lost their lives across the country in a nearly-continuous string of shootouts, bombings, and ever-bloodier murders. Just last weekend, 49 decapitated bodies were reportedly discovered on a highway in northern Mexico. The New York Times reports on an increasing numbness and apathy among Mexicans after years of worsening carnage, about which they’ve been able to do virtually nothing. Gathered here is a collection of recent photographs from Mexico’s drug war and the people so horribly affected by it.

Warning: All images in this entry are shown in full. There are many dead bodies; the photographs are graphic and stark. This is the reality of the situation in Mexico right now.

Full article: Mexico’s Drug War: 50,000 Dead in 6 Years (The Atlantic)