Retired generals and current senior commanders that have spoken with TheBlaze say the administration is not only purging the military of commanders they don’t agree with, but is striking fear in the hearts of those still serving. The timing comes as the five branches of the US armed forces are reducing staff due to budget cuts, and as US troops are expected to withdraw from Afghanistan next year.

“I think they’re using the opportunity of the shrinkage of the military to get rid of people that don’t agree with them or not tow the party line. Remember, as (former White House chief of staff) Rahm Emanuel said, never waste a crisis,” a senior retired general told TheBlaze on the condition of anonymity because he still provides services to the government and fears possible retribution.

“Even as a retired general, it’s still possible for the administration to make life miserable for us. If we’re working with the government or have contracts, they can just rip that out from under us,” he said. Retired US Army Major General Paul Vallely, an outspoken critic of the Obama administration, said the White House fails to take action or investigate its own, but finds it easy to fire military commanders “who have given their lives for their country.”

“Obama will not purge a civilian or political appointee because they have bought into Obama’s ideology,” Vallely said. “The White House protects their own. That’s why they stalled on the investigation into fast and furious, Benghazi and Obamacare. He’s intentionally weakening and gutting our military, Pentagon and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged.”

The common feature of means-tested assistance programs is that they are graduated based on a person’s income and, in contrast to programs like Social Security or Medicare, they are a free benefit and not paid into by the recipient," says the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee.

"The enormous sum spent on means-tested assistance is nearly five times greater than the combined amount spent on NASA, education, and all federal transportation projects over that time ($3.7 trillion is not even the entire amount spent on federal poverty support, as states contribute more than $200 billion each year to this federal nexus — primarily in the form of free low-income health care).

In total, the Census Bureau estimated, 151,014,000 Americans out of a population then estimated to be 306,804,000 received benefits from one or more government programs during the last three months of 2011.

Those 151,014,000 beneficiaries equalled 49.2 percent of the population. This included 82,457,000 people - or 26.9 percent of the population - who lived in households in which one or more people received Medicaid benefits. When Obamacare is fully implemented on January 1, 2014, Americans earning up to 400 percent of the poverty level will qualify for a federal subsidy to buy health insurance.

The breach became dramatic over the past week. Last Friday, Saudi Arabia refused to take its seat on the United Nations Security Council, in what Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi intelligence chief, described as “a message for the US, not the UN,” according to the Wall Street Journal. On Tuesday, Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former head of Saudi intelligence, voiced “a high level of disappointment in the US government’s dealings” on Syria and the Palestinian issue, in an interview with Al-Monitor.

What should worry the Obama administration is that Saudi concern about US policy in the Middle East is shared by the four other traditional US allies in the region: Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Israel. They argue (mostly privately) that Obama has shredded US influence by dumping President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, backing the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi, opposing the coup that toppled Morsi, vacillating in its Syria policy, and now embarking on negotiations with Iran — all without consulting close Arab allies.

Saudi King Abdullah privately voiced his frustration with US policy in a lunch in Riyadh Monday with King Abdullah of Jordan and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of the UAE, according to a knowledgeable Arab official. The Saudi monarch “is convinced the US is unreliable,” this official said. “I don’t see a genuine desire to fix it” on either side, he added.

In the most significant protest by a world leader since Edward Snowden began leaking details of the US’s global surveillance network, Mrs Merkel called Barack Obama and demanded his personal assurances she was not being monitored. The president promised his German counterpart that US intelligence “is not monitoring and will not monitor” her communications but the White House did not explicitly rule out the possibility she had been bugged in the past.

German diplomatic sources said they were still not satisfied with the White House’s explanation and would demand further clarification over the “completely unacceptable” allegations. The row comes two days after France summoned the US ambassador to Paris to demand an explanation to reports that America swept up 70 million French telephone records in a month including those of politicians and business leaders.

“Today President Obama and Chancellor Merkel spoke by telephone regarding the allegations that the US National Security Agency intercepted the communications of the German chancellor,” said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary. “I can tell you that the president assured the chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of the chancellor.”

Mr Carney did not answer a question about whether the NSA may have intercepted Mrs Merkel’s communications as part of a broader eavesdropping sweep. He also did not rule out the possibility that the US had in the past monitored her telephone, a nuance that was picked up by German diplomats.

The Strasbourg based parliament voted 280 in favor, with 254 against, with 30 abstentions, and called for a suspension of US access until a full enquiry clarifies the situation. “We need full transparency, especially with all the NSA revelations. Europe cannot accept that the data of private citizens is being accessed without anyone knowing about it", Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the Liberals in the European Parliament, told Reuters.

EU lawmakers are concerned that the US is covertly using information from the SWIFT database following leaked US documents aired by Brazil’s biggest television network Globo, which indicated that the US has secretly tapped into SWIFT. Under current agreements the US has limited access to the SWIFT database. The deal is part of transatlantic cooperation following the September 2001 attacks, and allows certain data from SWIFT to be shared with the US treasury.

The idea was that by sharing on a limited basis the millions of financial messages that take place across the world every day, it would help combat terrorism.

Invited speakers will almost exclusively be supporters of the German government's military policy, including a representative of the "Military Technology and Jobs Working Group," functioning under the auspices of the presidium of the Industrial Union of Metalworkers (IG Metall). In the past, this caucus has repeatedly issued calls for the reorientation of the Bundeswehr into a global intervention army and supported the expansion of German arms exports. Employees of official military policy advisory bodies are also on the list of speakers.

Strong protest against the event has developed. Critics are openly calling this a "slap in the face of the peace and anti-war movement." Michael Sommer, Chair of the German Trade Union Federation (DGB), has invited the members of his organization to a "Peace and Security Policy Workshop" to be held next Wednesday in Berlin, with the intention of "discussing the trade unions' relationship to the military," as Sommer writes in the announcement of the event. The focus will not be on the Bundeswehr's past and current combat operations, which are euphemistically dubbed "international missions."

Even the choice of speakers, to lead the discussion, indicate an unambiguous commitment to the militarization of German foreign policy. Almost all of the speakers support the German government's military policy. Already last February, the DGB leadership had met with the German Minister of Defense, Thomas de Maizière (CDU). This was linked to the announcement of intentions to draw up "a joint declaration" on the Bundeswehr and the trade union's "shared values." It appears that now the ideological foundation must be laid.

Francis said: Divisions among us, but also divisions among the communities: evangelical Christians, orthodox Christians, Catholic Christians, but why divided? We must try to bring about unity. Let me tell you something, today, before leaving home, I spent 40 minutes more or less, half an hour, with an evangelical pastor. And we prayed together, seeking unity.

But we Catholics must pray with each other and other Christians. Pray that the Lord gift us (with) unity! Unity among ourselves! How will we ever have unity among Christians if we are not capable of having it among us Catholics, in the family, how many families fight and split up? Seek unity, unity builds the Church and comes from Jesus Christ. He sends us the Holy Spirit to build unity!

I believe that it is truly important for everyone to confront in dialogue the historical reality of the Reformation, its consequences and the responses it elicited. Catholics and Lutherans can ask forgiveness for the harm they have caused one another and for their offenses committed in the sight of God. Together we can rejoice in the longing for unity which the Lord has awakened in our hearts, and which makes us look with hope to the future.

Of all Christians, Catholics have the highest obligation to work toward healing the divisions - and promoting an authentic path toward Christian unity. There is an adage in the Gospels which has a special application in this arena, "To those to whom much is given, much more will be required" (Luke 12:48). If the fullness of truth subsists in the Catholic Church, (see, n8, Lumen Gentium) that should not make us haughty, but humble in our relationship with other Christians.

As Angela Merkel forms a new coalition government after a third successive election triumph, the conservative chancellor can build on efforts, in place since her first term in 2005, that have increased not just the number of Germans in senior jobs in Brussels but the extent to which they answer to Berlin.

And where that fails to ensure EU policy acceptable to the bloc's biggest economy, Merkel has shown she is prepared to lay down the law in person - as when she demanded an EU retreat this summer from a looming trade war with China that would have hurt the exports of Germany's big car makers and engineering firms.

Its 27 partners can hardly deny that a state which is home to one EU citizen in six and produces a fifth of the bloc's output must have a big say. Berlin's new assertiveness, aided by a widening economic gap it has opened up over struggling allies, is, however, provoking grumbles - though there is little sign yet of a serious challenge to weaken Merkel's grip in Brussels.

The diffuse structure of the European Union does give the 27 other states scope to challenge Germany's economic strategy. But that does not convince European Parliament member Nigel Farage. His UK Independence Party wants Britain, still outside the euro zone, to completely pull out of a European Union in which Farage sees economics ensuring Berlin will call the shots. "Whether Britain is in or out," he said, "Economic policy-making in the euro zone is going to be dominated by Germany."

Although the epicenter of the quake, which registered 3.3. on the Richter Scale, was located in the Egyptian town of Taaba, tremors were registered in the Israeli resort city. No damage or injuries occurred. This is the seventh such mini-earthquake in a week, and Israel has been abuzz with speculation as to whether such a rare string of tremors could portend a much larger earthquake.

On Monday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ordered emergency earthquake drills in schools throughout the country, and Shas MK Eli Yishai, who heads the parliamentary committee charged with home front preparedness, announced a "special meeting in wake of the wave of earthquakes."

In 1927, about 300 people were killed when a quake hit Jerusalem and nearby Jericho. A similar quake in 1837 measuring 7.0 and with an epicentre in northern Israel's Hula Valley, devastated the town of Tzfat (Safed), and killed some 4,000 people.

Alan Johnston BBC News, Rome, reports: When Bishop Tebartz-van Elst flew into Rome last week it was reportedly on a Ryanair flight. Budget travel is perhaps not quite the style of the "bishop of bling", but it was more appropriate given his mission.

He was here to explain to the Pope his $42 million palace renovation job. And waiting for that meeting cannot have been comfortable. Would the Pope mention the bishop's $20,000 bathtub? Or the $34,000 conference table? Everybody knows that building projects can get, well, out of hand. But of all the popes, Francis was least likely to be sympathetic.

At the centre of his message has been the need for the Church to connect to the poor and the deprived. Francis has criticised clerics who live too lavishly. He has told them not to live "like princes", and he has himself chosen to stay in a Vatican guest house rather than move into the very much grander papal apartment.

The banking industry is in absolute chaos as their criminality is being exposed for the entire world to see. The time to have taken your money out of the bank was yesterday. There is very little time before the IMF’s plan to steal 10%, for starters, of all bank accounts in Europe. JPMorgan Chase is banning wire transfers from their bank to foreign banks to prevent American capital flight, which will surely happen as America wakes up to the desperate situation that the banks are in.

The bank is also prohibiting any cash withdrawals of $50,000 or more. This past Friday, HSBC (America) followed suit. It is highly likely that all 5 megabanks will enact the same policies in the near future.

In an upside-down world in which the banks legally own your money, getting your money away from these criminal banks has become an art form. I cannot promise you that you will be able to retrieve all of your assets, however, I can promise you that if you do not act, you will lose everything.

We've managed to get our hands on an updated version of the draft European Council conclusions (which is doing the rounds in Brussels) ahead of the meeting of EU leaders later this week.

And what do you know, the following paragraphs have made it in:-

"The Commission will provide a first overview of the implementation of country-specific recommendations that will be a basis for the monitoring of their implementation. This will also assess growth and jobs enhancing policies and measures, including the performance of labour and product markets, the efficiency of public service, as well as education and innovation in the Euro area. On this basis, work will be carried forward to strengthen economic policy coordination, including on the main features of contractual arrangements and of associated solidarity mechanisms."

It's a vague formulation - and hard to know exactly what it means - but we think it's at least fair to assume that the idea is back on the agenda (our view is it never quite went away). As we've argued repeatedly, the kind of beefed-up supervision and enforcement that the Germans have in mind would most likely require EU treaty change.

The nature, scope and timing of such a Treaty change is anyone's guess at the moment, however.

In fact, when Adam Crain and Chris Sistrunk decided to test some new software they were developing they identified a vulnerability so serious that it could literally blind operational controllers to such an extent that they would be locked out of monitoring systems and unable to maintain grid integrity. The consequences, according to the engineers who note they are in no way security specialists, could be a total downing of the national power grid with nodes across the nation being taken over all at once.

Moreover, the same systems used to maintain the US power grid are also being used in other industries, like water treatment facilities. You’d think that such a vulnerability would be a top priority for the Department of Homeland Security, considering they are spending millions of dollars and promoting their coming Grid Ex exercise in November. But you’d be wrong. The kicker is that when Crain and Sistrunk advised the DHS Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team, they got what essentially amounts to no response. It took Homeland Security a full four months before they even acknowledged the problem. The two engineers who discovered the vulnerability say little is being done.

And when we say deadly, we mean it, because according to a report from the Center for Security Policy presented to Congress in 2010, if our power grid were to be taken offline for an extended period of time, 9 out of 10 Americans would be dead within a year. There would be no way to transport food because gas station pumps would be inoperable. And even if they did work, the commerce systems which makes the exchange of goods possible would be offline. Couple that with water utilities not functioning due to lack of electricity, and we’re talking about a worst-case scenario so bad that this country may never recover.

Former Congressman Roscoe Bartlet has urged those who can to move out of major cities for this reason.

The latest volley, from his new book, “The Map and the Territory,” is a warning that the Fed’s balance sheet expansion — $3.8 trillion and counting — may unleash inflation. “It is easy to contemplate price acceleration, with today’s Federal Reserve balances unchanged, ranging from 3 percent per annum to double digits over the next 5 to 10 years,” he writes.

It’s been a long time since anyone accurately predicted higher inflation. Instead, inflation has sagged to the lowest levels on record. But here’s why Mr Greenspan is worried. Each time the Fed buys a bond, it pays the bank that sells the bond by creating money and putting it into an account that the bank keeps at the Fed. Mr Greenspan’s inflation prediction is based on his estimation of the consequences as that money flows out into the economy.