Today, there are more than 7 billion people living on earth.  For the global elite, that is problem number one.  The vast majority of us don't spend much time thinking about global population issues, but for many among the elite it is an absolute obsession.  Many of them truly believe that you are ruining their planet and they desperately want you to stop reproducing so much.  Among the elite, the belief that the world is grossly overpopulated and that this is causing most of our major global problems crosses all political, cultural and social boundaries.  This philosophy is taught as gospel at the vast majority of all colleges and universities on the planet, and it is being relentlessly pushed by the United Nations, the WHO, the World Bank and national governments all over the globe.  When most people think of "overpopulation", they think of places such as India, but the truth is that those of us living in America are considered to be the worst offenders because our lifestyles are "polluting" the planet so rapidly.  In fact, one scientist recently estimated that a child born in the United States has a "carbon legacy" 55 times greater than a child born in India.  The elite are convinced that if they can reduce the global population far enough and get the remaining people living on earth to switch over to "sustainable lifestyles" that they will be able to save "their" planet.  But the draconian measures that would be necessary to achieve this dystopian dream would not be very palatable to the vast majority of us.  In fact, if the most radical population control advocates get their way, we will experience global tyranny on a scale never seen before.

Right now, most of us living in the western world are not prepared to accept "forced" population control measures and the global elite know this.  But the truth is that they absolutely love what is going on right now in places such as China.

In China today, a one child policy is strictly enforced, and women are literally pulled from their homes and taken to abortion clinics when they are found to be in violation.  The following example comes from a recent CNN article....

When Ji Yeqing awakened, she was already in the recovery room.

Chinese authorities had dragged her out of her home and down four flights of stairs, she said, restraining and beating her husband as he tried to come to her aid.

They whisked her into a clinic, held her down on a bed and forced her to undergo an abortion.

Her offense? Becoming pregnant with a second child, in violation of China's one-child policy.

So does the international community condemn China for such actions?

No, in fact the United Nations gives China awards for their population reduction policies.

In the western world, there are also great efforts underway to reduce family sizes and to get women to choose not to have children.  But these efforts are always "voluntary".  We are told that if women are "empowered" that they will always choose to have fewer children.

But many radical environmentalists are openly complaining that these voluntary methods are not getting the job done fast enough.

For example, the following is from a recent article by Julia Whitty for Mother Jones....

The only known solution to ecological overshoot is to decelerate our population growth faster than it's decelerating now and eventually reverse it—at the same time we slow and eventually reverse the rate at which we consume the planet's resources. Success in these twin endeavors will crack our most pressing global issues: climate change, food scarcity, water supplies, immigration, health care, biodiversity loss, even war. On one front, we've already made unprecedented strides, reducing global fertility from an average 4.92 children per woman in 1950 to 2.56 today—an accomplishment of trial and sometimes brutally coercive error, but also a result of one woman at a time making her individual choices. The speed of this childbearing revolution, swimming hard against biological programming, rates as perhaps our greatest collective feat to date.

But it's not enough. And it's still not fast enough. Faced with a world that can support either a lot of us consuming a lot less or far fewer of us consuming more, we're deadlocked: individuals, governments, the media, scientists, environmentalists, economists, human rights workers, liberals, conservatives, business and religious leaders.

For radicals such as Whitty, things are never moving fast enough.  They truly believe that humanity is destroying the planet and that they are literally attempting to "save the world" by pushing for global population control.

But this kind of thinking is not just reflected in the writings of a few radicals.

The truth is that "scientific reports" advocating global population control are regularly featured in the most important newspapers all over the planet.

The following example comes from a recent article in the Guardian....

World population needs to be stabilised quickly and high consumption in rich countries rapidly reduced to avoid "a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills", warns a major report from the Royal Society.

Contraception must be offered to all women who want it and consumption cut to reduce inequality, says the study published on Thursday, which was chaired by Nobel prize-winning biologist Sir John Sulston.

The assessment of humanity's prospects in the next 100 years, which has taken 21 months to complete, argues strongly that to achieve long and healthy lives for all 9 billion people expected to be living in 2050, the twin issues of population and consumption must be pushed to the top of political and economic agendas.

When was the last time that you saw an article that was 100% opposed to global population control featured in an important newspaper?

Sadly, this population control agenda has a complete stranglehold on the scientific community.  The philosophy that the earth is massively overpopulated and that this overpopulation is causing most of our biggest problems is considered to be gospel at most of our colleges and universities today.

If you question this orthodoxy, you risk being academically blackballed.

Not only that, but the scientific community considers the biggest offenders of all to be Americans because of our "excessive" lifestyles.

For example, just check out what statistician Paul Murtaugh of Oregon State University said a while back....

"Using United Nations projections of fertility, and projecting statistically through the lifespan of the mother's line—some lineages being short-lived, others indefinitely long—an American child born today adds an average 10,407 tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of her mother. That's almost six times more CO₂ than the mother's own lifetime emissions. Furthermore, the ecological costs of that child and her children far outweigh even the combined energy-saving choices from all a mother's other good decisions, like buying a fuel-efficient car, recycling, using energy-saving appliances and lightbulbs. The carbon legacy of one American child and her offspring is 20 times greater than all those other sustainable maternal choices combined."

Murtaugh also believes that a child born in the United States has a "carbon legacy" that is 55 times greater than that of a child born in India.

This helps to explain why the elite are so obsessed with abortion and "family planning".

The elite are desperate to convince you to stop reproducing.

They truly believe that they are helping to "save the world" when they convince us to have less children.

In fact, the amount of money that is being spent to promote "family planning" around the globe is absolutely staggering.

For example, according to a recent MarketWatch article Bill and Melinda Gates plan to spend 4 billion dollars to get contraceptive devices into the hands of 120 million more women by the year 2020....

Melinda Gates recently announced a “new crusade” for her $32 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. A recent Newsweek interview with Michelle Goldberg says it’s a “decision that is likely to change lives all over the planet.”

Gates has “decided to make family planning her signature issue,” by investing “billions to revolutionize contraception worldwide,” with substantial economic consequences.

The Gates decision will “be hugely significant for American women.” She’s “pouring money into the long-neglected field of contraceptive research, seeking entirely new methods of birth control,” a “whole new class of drugs,” some that could even work without hormones, and others, might be implantable devises that never need to be removed, can even be turned on and off by the woman.

While Bill and Melinda Gates portray their population control efforts as "humanitarian endeavors", others among the global elite are more open about what they consider the "endgame" to be.

The following examples are from a recent article by Paul Joseph Watson....

- Finnish environmentalist guru Pentti Linkola, publicly called for climate change deniers be “re-educated” in eco-gulags and that the vast majority of humans be killed with the rest enslaved and controlled by a green police state, with people forcibly sterilized, cars confiscated and travel restricted to members of the elite.

- Another Finnish environmentalist writer, Martin Kreiggeist, hails Linkola’s call for eco-gulags and oppression as “a solution,” calling for people to “take up the axes” in pursuit of killing off the third world. Kreiggeist wants fellow eco-fascists to “act on” Linkola’s call for mass murder in order to solve overpopulation.

- In 2010, James Lovelock, the creator of the Gaia hypothesis, told the Guardian that “democracy must be put on hold” to combat global warming and that “a few people with authority” should be allowed to run the planet because people were too stupid to be allowed to steer their own destinies.

There are a surprising number of people out there that actually advocate for mass murder and mass enslavement for the good of the planet.

Dave Foreman, the co-founder of Earth First, once stated that reducing the global population to 100 million people is one of his three main goals....

"My three main goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with it’s full complement of species, returning throughout the world."

Sadly, this philosophy has even infected the U.S. government.  The truth is that billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have been spent to promote population control around the globe, and it hasn't mattered much whether Republicans or Democrats were in the White House.  The following is an excerpt from an article entitled "The Population Control Holocaust" by Robert Zubrin.....

Of the billions of taxpayer dollars that the U.S. government has expended on population control abroad, a portion has been directly spent by USAID on its own field activities, but the majority has been laundered through a variety of international agencies. As a result of this indirect funding scheme, all attempts to compel the population control empire to conform its activities to accepted medical, ethical, safety, or human rights norms have proven futile. Rather, in direct defiance of laws enacted by Congress to try to correct the situation, what has and continues to be perpetrated at public expense is an atrocity on a scale so vast and varied as to almost defy description. Nevertheless, it is worth attempting to convey to readers some sense of the evil that is being done with their money.

If you have not read the rest of that article yet, you really should.  You can find the rest of that article right here.

At this point, nearly every major international organization is involved in these population control efforts to at least some degree.

For example, a recent article by Jurriaan Maessen detailed how the World Bank is actually using "financial assistance" as leverage to get developing nations to conform to the global population control agenda....

According to two subsequent documents put out by the World Bank, its guidelines dictate that in order to qualify for World Bank lending, sovereign nations must implement population reduction objectives as outlined by the World Bank and UN Population Fund. If they refuse, lending will be withdrawn.

Already pre-tested and implemented in Yemen and Niger, these guidelines are destined for global implementation within the next decade, says the World Bank.

Isn't that sick?

Later in that same article, Maessen discusses how the UN, the WHO, the World Bank and many other international organizations all work together to move this twisted agenda forward....

Returning to the essence, the intention and the strategy leave little for the imagination: a global consensus is in place between all the major transnational institutions and banks: the earth’s population must be brought down, with all means necessary. The World Bank uses financial tools to bring nations on their knees, demanding they cull their numbers; the UN guarantees the political legitimizing for these depopulation policies (Agenda 21); the Foundations develop the anti-fertility vaccines and GM Food, the World Health Organization takes care of the “health-standards” and distribution. With the help of this global construct, carefully coordinated from the top-down, the scientific dictatorship has circled the wagons around all of free humanity.

Sadly, there is so much more that could be said about all of this.  If you are interested in learning more about the disgusting population control agenda of the global elite, the following are 10 more articles I would recommend checking out....

#1 "They Love Death"

#2 "From 7 Billion People To 500 Million People – The Sick Population Control Agenda Of The Global Elite"

#3 "Al Gore, Agenda 21 And Population Control"

#4 "The Green Agenda Is About Getting Rid Of As Many Humans As Possible"

#5 "Governments Around The World Are Eagerly Adopting The Strict Population Control Agenda Of The United Nations"

#6 "Yes, They Really Do Want To Reduce The Population – 22 Shocking Population Control Quotes From The Global Elite That Will Make You Want To Lose Your Lunch"

#7 "One Less Child? Environmental Extremists Warn That Overpopulation Is Causing Climate Change And Will Ultimately Destroy The Earth"

#8 "Hillary Clinton: Population Control Will Now Become The Centerpiece Of U.S. Foreign Policy"

#9 "New U.N. Report: We Must Reduce The Population To Fight Climate Change"

#10 "To The Global Elite The Math Is Simple: Human Overpopulation Is Causing Climate Change So The Solution To Climate Change Is Population Control"

This population control agenda is not going away any time soon.

In fact, thanks to endless propaganda in the media, it is winning over more hearts and minds with each passing day.

Just ask some of your friends what they think.  If you are like most Americans, it is almost inevitable that you will have some friends that believe in global population control.

And without a doubt there will be readers that leave comments at the end of this article supporting the population control agenda of the global elite.

The idea that humanity is ruining the planet and that we need to dramatically reduce our numbers is being relentlessly pushed today.  Millions upon millions of people all over the world have bought into this lie hook, line and sinker.

Ultimately, this philosophy will lead us down a path that will end in absolute global tyranny.

So what do you think about this issue?  Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below....

There is nothing wrong with being optimistic, but there is something wrong with having blind faith that things are going to get better when all of the evidence is screaming at you that things are going to get worse.  According to a brand new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, 71 percent of all Americans consider economic conditions  in the United States to be poor right now, but an astounding 58 percent of them believe that economic conditions in the United States will be good a year from now.  So what can account for this?  Are they insane?  Are they hopelessly optimistic?  Do they not want to believe the facts that are staring them right in the face?  Well, a lot of it probably has to do with the upcoming election.  Most Republicans are convinced that things will be "better" somehow if Romney wins in November.  Most Democrats are convinced that things will "continue to improve" if Obama wins in November.  But the truth is that the economy has been declining steadily in recent years no matter which party has been in power.  Today, the American Dream is out of reach for huge numbers of formerly middle class families.  Millions of jobs continue to leave the United States, poverty is absolutely exploding and our nation is absolutely drowning in debt.  Sadly, nothing is being done to reverse the long-term economic trends that are destroying us.  So, a year from now things are not going to be any better.  In fact, many analysts are absolutely convinced that things are going to be a whole lot worse by then.

For example, just check out the following excerpt from a report that was just released by LEAP/E2020....

Thus, according to LEAP/E2020, the 2012 election year, which opens against the backdrop of economic and social depression, complete paralysis of the federal system (3), strong rejection of the traditional two-party system and a growing questioning of the relevance of the Constitution, inaugurates a crucial period in the history of the United States. Over the next four years, the country will be subjected to political, economic, financial and social upheaval such as it has not known since the end of the Civil War which, by an accident of history, started exactly 150 years ago in 1861. During this period, the US will be simultaneously insolvent and ungovernable, turning that which was the “flagship” of the world in recent decades into a “drunken boat”.

Wow, that paints a far different picture of the future than most Americans are imagining, eh?

The U.S. "will be simultaneously insolvent and ungovernable"?

That doesn't sound very optimistic.

Gerald Celente, the head of the Trends Research Institute, is also very pessimistic about the rest of 2012.  Just consider the following quotes from a recent USA Today article....

"2012 is when many of the long-simmering socioeconomic and political trends that we have been forecasting and tracking will climax," Celente noted in his Top 12 Trends 2012 newsletter. In an interview he added: "When money stops flowing to the man on the street, blood starts flowing in the street."

So who is right and who is wrong?

Only time will tell.

But I think it will be very interesting to pull this article back up a year from now.

At the moment, things do not look promising for the U.S. economy....

-The percentage of Americans planning to buy a home within the next six months continues to hover near a record low.

-The U.S. trade deficit with China continues to get even larger.

-Jobs for blue collar workers continue to disappear.  In 1962, 28 percent of all jobs in America were manufacturing jobs.  In 2011, only 9 percent of all jobs in America were manufacturing jobs.  Overall, America has lost a total of more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001.

-There are not nearly enough white collar jobs for the hordes of fresh college graduates entering the marketplace.  At this point, 53 percent of all U.S. college graduates under the age of 25 are either unemployed or underemployed.

-The percentage of working age Americans that are employed continues to go down.  The following are the figures for the past three months....

February 2012: 58.6%

March 2012: 58.5%

April 2012: 58.4%

-Due to the lack of jobs, the middle class in the United States continues to shrink rapidly.

-A shocking number of Americans cannot even pay their bills at this point.  According to one recent survey, approximately one-third of all Americans are not paying their bills on time right now.

-Incomes for middle class families continue to shrink.  After adjusting for inflation, median household income in America has declined by 7.8 percent since December 2007.

-Meanwhile, the prices of the things we all buy month after month continue to go up.  In fact, if inflation was measured the exact same way that it was back in 1980, the annual rate of inflation would be more than 10 percent right now.

-Millions of American families are experiencing a massive amount of pain at the pump.  Since Barack Obama entered the White House, the price of gasoline has risen by more than 100 percent.

-As the middle class shrinks, the number of Americans on welfare continues to explode.  Back in November 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps.  Today, more than 46 million Americans are on food stamps.

-But this is not just a short-term trend.  The truth is that dependence on the federal government has been rising for decades.  But in recent years it has accelerated dramatically.  In a previous article, I detailed the incredible growth of social welfare benefits that we have seen under both Republicans and Democrats....

Back in 1960, social welfare benefits made up approximately 10 percent of all salaries and wages.  In the year 2000, social welfare benefits made up approximately 21 percent of all salaries and wages.  Today, social welfare benefits make up approximately 35 percent of all salaries and wages.

-The federal government is propping up the economy with unprecedented amounts of government debt.  Sadly, the U.S. national debt has risen by more than 5 trillion dollars since the day that Barack Obama first took office.  In a little more than 3 years Obama has added more to the national debt than the first 41 presidents combined.

-In many ways, the U.S. is already in worse shape than Europe is.  At this point, the United States has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain.

So remind me again why things are going to get better?

The only reason why the economy has not collapsed already is because of unprecedented borrowing by the federal government and unprecedented money printing by the Federal Reserve.  But those emergency measures cannot last indefinitely.

So it is absolutely insane to expect economic conditions in the United States to improve.

The truth is that they are a lot better right now than they should be.  Once the federal government quits injecting more than a trillion borrowed dollars into the economy every single year things are going to look a lot different.

Instead of preparing for things to get better, the American people should be preparing for things to get worse.

So what do you think?

Do you think that economic conditions will be better a year from now or worse?

Feel free to post a comment below with your thoughts....

If we are trying to become independent of foreign oil, then why is the Obama administration allowing the Chinese government to buy up U.S. oil and gas deposits worth billions of dollars?  This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.  The United States desperately needs to maintain control over its own domestic energy resources so that we can end our addiction to foreign oil.  As I have written about previously, the United States actually has plenty of oil.  If we would simply use the resources that we already have, we would never have to import a single drop of foreign oil.  But instead, we continue to be the largest importer of oil on the planet and we are allowing China to rapidly buy up oil and gas deposits inside the United States.  This is fundamentally wrong and it is a serious threat to our national security.  But apparently everything is for sale in the United States today, and that includes our precious energy resources.

The Chinese government is using two giant corporations to buy up these energy resources.

The first is the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).  According to Wikipedia, this corporation is 100 percent owned by the Chinese government....

CNOOC Group is a state-owned oil company, fully owned by the Government of the People's Republic of China, and the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC) performs the rights and obligations of shareholder on behalf of the government.

The second is Sinopec Corporation.  Sinopec Group is the largest shareholder (about 75% of the shares) in Sinopec Corporation.  And as the Sinopec website tells us, Sinopec Group is owned by the Chinese government....

Sinopec Group, the largest shareholder of Sinopec Corp., is a super-large petroleum and petrochemical group incorporated by the State in 1998 based on the former China Petrochemical Corporation. Funded by the State, it is a State authorized investment arm and State-owned controlling company.

So wherever you see CNOOC or Sinopec you can replace those names with the Chinese government.  The Chinese government essentially runs both of those companies.

And both companies have been very busy buying up U.S. oil and gas deposits.

For example, CNOOC recently completed a 570 million dollar deal that gives it a one-third interest in huge oil and gas deposits in Colorado and Wyoming.  The following is from Wyoming Energy News....

Chinese energy company Cnooc Ltd. has agreed to pay $570 million for a one-third interest in Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s 800,000 leased acres in northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming. The acreage is in the Denver-Julesburg (DJ) and Powder River basins. Cnooc is China’s biggest offshore oil and natural gas producer.

In fact, according to a recent Business Insider article, this deal gives the Chinese government the right to a third of any new oil discovered by Chesapeake Energy in the entire region....

The Niobrara Shale formation stretches over Colorado and Wyoming, as well as Kansas and Nebraska. Chesapeake Energy's position is in Wyoming and Colorado. If Chesapeake find any more oil in this region, CNOOC has the rights to 33.3% of what is found.

But this is not the only area of the country where China now owns energy rights.  The following is an excerpt from a recent state-by-state breakdown that appeared in the Wall Street Journal....

Louisiana: Sinopec has a one-third interest in 265,000 acres in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale after a broader $2.5-billion deal with Devon Energy.

Michigan: Sinopec gained a one-third interest in 350,000 acres in a larger $2.5 billion deal with Devon Energy.

Ohio: Sinopec acquired a one-third stake in Devon Energy’s 235,000 Utica Shale acres in a larger $2.5 billion deal.

Oklahoma: Sinopec has a one-third interest in 215,000 acres in a broader $2.5 billion deal with Devon Energy.

Texas: Cnooc acquired a one-third interest in Chesapeake Energy’s 600,000 acres in the Eagle Ford Shale in a $2.16-billion deal.

The Texas deal was particularly noteworthy.  The following is how a San Antonio news source described that deal....

State-owned Chinese energy giant CNOOC is buying a multibillion-dollar stake in 600,000 acres of South Texas oil and gas fields, potentially testing the political waters for further expansion into U.S. energy reserves.

With the announcement Monday that it would pay up to $2.2 billion for a one-third stake in Chesapeake Energy assets, CNOOC lays claim to a share of properties that eventually could produce up to half a million barrels a day of oil equivalent.

So why is the Obama administration allowing this to happen?

Are they so desperate to have China continue lending money to the United States that they would allow the Chinese government to pillage our precious energy resources?

Somebody needs to be asking our politicians that question.

But oil and gas are not the only U.S. assets that the Chinese have been buying up.

In a previous article, I detailed how the Chinese have been purchasing huge chunks of real estate all over the country as well.

For example, a recent Forbes article detailed some of the real estate deals that China has been doing in New York....

According to a recent report in the New York Times, investors from China are “snapping up luxury apartments” and are planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on commercial and residential projects like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. Chinese companies also have signed major leases at the Empire State Building and at 1 World Trade Center, the report said.

In addition, it was recently announced that the Federal Reserve will now allow Chinese banks to buy up American banks.

Where will all of this end?

Should all of us start learning to speak Chinese?

Meanwhile, our trade deficit with China continues to get even larger.  Our trade deficit with China last year was $295.5 billion, which was the largest trade deficit that one country has had with another country in the history of the world.  This year, we are already on a pace to break that record.

So thousands of businesses, millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars will continue to leave the United States and go to China.

And China will continue to use some of the money they are getting from us to buy up pieces of America.

Does anyone else out there see something very, very wrong with all of this?

Did you know that illegal immigrants all over the United States are using a massive scam to receive tax refunds from the federal government that are often in excess of $10,000?  It is estimated that 2 million illegal immigrants are filing fraudulent tax returns each year and that they are pulling in more than 4 billion dollars in tax refunds every year that they are not entitled to.  They are doing this by abusing the additional child tax credit and the IRS knows all about it and yet they refuse to do anything to stop it.  Illegal immigrants are filing tax returns that sometimes claim 10 or 12 nieces and nephews as dependents, and most of the time those nieces and nephews do not even live in the United States.  So while you and I are being taxed into oblivion, many illegal immigrants are often pulling in tax refunds that are well into five figures.  At a time when the federal government is absolutely drowning in debt, this is the type of fraud that desperately needs to be cracked down on, and yet the IRS refuses to take action.

Posted below is the shocking investigation by WTHR in Indianapolis that broke this story wide open.  If you have not seen this yet, it is definitely worth the 6 minutes that it takes to watch it.  Please share it with as many people as you can.  It boggles the mind to think that this kind of fraud can be committed right out in the open and yet the IRS will not take action.  You can watch this shocking investigation right here....

So how in the world can illegal immigrants file tax returns without a Social Security number?

Well, the IRS says that everyone must file a tax return - even people that are making money illegally.

So illegal immigrants are given an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN).

Like a Social Security number, it contains nine digits and it is used by U.S. employers to withhold taxes and it is used by illegal immigrants to file their tax returns.

You might be thinking that this sounds completely insane considering the fact that it is illegal for them to have jobs in the United States, and you would be right.

But this is how the system works.

And it turns out that illegal immigrants have been exploiting the additional child tax credit to receive absolutely huge tax refunds.

Recently, a tax preparer up in Indiana blew the whistle on this whole thing.  A WorldNetDaily article about this scam contained some absolutely mind blowing quotes from this whistleblower....

“We’ve seen sometimes 10 or 12 dependents, most times nieces and nephews, on these tax forms,” a tax preparer-turned-whistleblower told WTHR News. “The more you put on there, the more you get back.”

“Here’s a return right here: we’ve got a $10,300 refund for nine nieces and nephews.”

“We’re getting an $11,000 refund on this tax return. There’s seven nieces and nephews,” he said, pointing to another set of documents. “I can bring out stacks and stacks. It’s just so easy it’s ridiculous.”

Last year, the whistleblower alerted the IRS to dozens of examples of illegal immigrants using this scam.

So what happened?

Absolutely nothing.

The IRS took no action.

But they seem to have plenty of time to come after you and I, don't they?

The WTHR investigation mentioned above discovered one instance in which it was claimed that a total of 20 children lived in one trailer in Indiana.

Because of tax credits for those children, a total of $29,608 was paid out to several illegal immigrant workers.

But when a reporter from WTHR went to the trailer, he found that only one girl actually lived there.

What makes all of this even worse is that the IRS has known about this problem for years.

In fact, the IRS has not taken action on this problem despite report after report from the Inspector General.

Amazingly, the IRS seems to believe that there is not even a problem.  The following is from a statement that the IRS issued to WTHR....

“The law has been clear for over a decade that eligibility for these credits does not depend on work authorization status or the type of taxpayer identification number used. Any suggestion that the IRS shouldn’t be paying out these credits under current law to ITIN holders is simply incorrect. The IRS administers the law impartially and applies it as it is written. If the law were changed, the IRS would change its programs accordingly.

“The IRS disagrees with TIGTA’s (inspector general) recommendation on requiring additional documentation to verify child-credit claims. As TIGTA acknowledges in this report, the IRS does not currently have the legal authority to verify and disallow the Child Tax Credit and the Additional Child Tax Credit during return processing simply because of the lack of documentation.

“The IRS has procedures in place specifically for the evaluation of questionable credit claims early in the processing stream and prior to issuance of a refund. The IRS continues to work to refine and improve our processes.”

Can you believe that?

So next year millions of illegal immigrants will once again rake in billions of dollars that they are not entitled to and the IRS will continue to look the other way.

This is yet another example of how the federal government has different rules for illegal immigrants than they have for the rest of us.

In fact, the Obama administration has now instructed government officials to use "prosecutorial discretion" in deportation cases.  In essence what that means is that if an illegal immigrant has not been convicted of a crime, it will now be highly unlikely that he or she will be deported.

Over the past several decades, we have seen tens of millions of illegal immigrants come pouring into our country.  They have taken our jobs and they have terrorized our communities.  There are now 1.4 million gang members in the United States, and that number has increased by 40 percent since 2009.  Most of that increase is due to illegal immigration.

Illegal immigration is one of the biggest national security threats that we face, and yet the federal government continues to look the other way.

Has the federal government gone completely insane?

A Chinese group known as "Sino-Michigan Properties LLC" has bought up 200 acres of land near the town of Milan, Michigan.  Their plan is to construct a "China City" with artificial lakes, a Chinese cultural center and hundreds of housing units for Chinese citizens.  Essentially, it would be a little slice of communist China dropped right into the heartland of America.  This "China City" would be located about 40 minutes from both Detroit and Toledo, and it would be marketed to Chinese business people that want to start businesses in the United States.  Unfortunately, this is not just an isolated incident.  In fact, Chinese companies have been buying up land and businesses all over the country in recent years.  There has even been talk of establishing "special economic zones" inside the United States modeled after the Chinese city of Shenzhen.  It was inevitable that the Chinese were going to do something with the trillions of dollars that they have made flooding our shores with cheap products.  Now they are rapidly buying up pieces of America, and many of our politicians are welcoming them with open arms.

The town of Milan, Michigan is a small farming community of only about 6,000 people, but big changes are coming their way.  The following is from a recent Dayton Daily News article about this new project....

A group of mainland Chinese known as Sino-Michigan Properties LLC paid $1.9 million for 200 acres of farmland on Milan city limits in purchases this year and in 2011, according to local officials and property records.

Unfortunately, the goal does not appear to be to integrate this new "city" into the existing community in and around Milan.

Rather, it appears that all of the new housing will be sold to people coming over from China.  According to the Milan News Leader newspaper, the new housing units "would be marketed to Chinese business people who want to start companies in the United States".

In essence, we would be looking at a new Chinese city right in the middle of Michigan.

Doug Smith, senior vice president for business and community development for the Michigan Economic Development Corp., recently said the following about what the Chinese group plans to do....

"It’s a group that wants to build a China city, starting with housing over there in Milan"

Milan is not far from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, which is a very popular destination for Chinese students.  Apparently that is one reason why Milan was chosen.

This new project would be a Chinese community built by Chinese and specifically designed for Chinese.

But isn't this supposed to be America?

Fortunately, the project does not have final approval yet.  It still must be approved by the two townships outside of Milan where the land is located.

For some reason, the Chinese seem to be particularly interested in this area of the country.

For example, a different Chinese investment group has been busy buying up chunks of real estate over in nearby Toledo, Ohio.  The following is from an article in the Toledo Blade on May 26th, 2011....

Dashing Pacific Group Ltd., which has already purchased the nearby Docks restaurant complex for $2.15 million, put its $3.8 million offer to buy the southern 69 acres at the Marina District in East Toledo back on the table for approval by Toledo City Council. Additionally, Dashing Pacific Chairman Yuan Xiaohong, in a letter signed in Hangzhou, said the firm wants a two-year option to buy the decommissioned Toledo Edison power plant property on the site.

So should we be alarmed that the Chinese are buying up pieces of America?

Well, if they simply wanted to enjoy living in America and wanted to integrate into the wider community that would be one thing.

But it is another thing altogether to start dropping slices of communist China inside of U.S. territory.

In a previous article entitled "China Wants To Construct A 50 Square Mile Self-Sustaining City South Of Boise, Idaho", I discussed a potential deal that Sinomach (a company controlled by the Chinese government) was exploring with the government of Idaho.  The following is a description of that potential project from an article in the Idaho Statesman....

A Chinese national company is interested in developing a 10,000- to 30,000-acre technology zone for industry, retail centers and homes south of the Boise Airport.

There was talk that this "technology zone" would be modeled after the "special economic zones" that have been developed in China.  The city of Shenzhen is perhaps the most famous example of this.

Fortunately that deal appears to have stalled, but other mammoth deals have been moving forward in other parts of the country.

For example, the Chinese have been very busy gobbling up oil and gas fields.  The following is a quote from a local Texas news source about a deal that a company owned by the Chinese government did with Chesapeake Energy down in Texas....

State-owned Chinese energy giant CNOOC is buying a multibillion-dollar stake in 600,000 acres of South Texas oil and gas fields, potentially testing the political waters for further expansion into U.S. energy reserves.

With the announcement Monday that it would pay up to $2.2 billion for a one-third stake in Chesapeake Energy assets, CNOOC lays claim to a share of properties that eventually could produce up to half a million barrels a day of oil equivalent.

You can read more about that particular deal right here.

So is it really a good idea to be allowing the Chinese to buy up our precious energy resources?

The answer to that question is obvious.

Sadly, the examples noted above are not isolated incidents.  The truth is that the Chinese have been snapping up real estate and business assets all over America as a recent Forbes article explained....

According to a recent report in the New York Times, investors from China are “snapping up luxury apartments” and are planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on commercial and residential projects like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. Chinese companies also have signed major leases at the Empire State Building and at 1 World Trade Center, the report said.

So get ready - the Chinese are buying up U.S. land and they are moving in whether you like it or not.

So what will the long-term consequences be of allowing a communist superpower to buy up large sections of America?

That is a very good question.

What would our founders say if they could see us now?  Americans like to believe that the rest of the world looks up to us, but the truth is that the rest of the world is laughing at us.  It may be very difficult for us to admit, but the reality is that America has become a nation of slobs.  And I am not just talking about being overweight.  Today, Americans are physical, mental, emotional, moral, financial and political slobs.  We are addicted to entertainment, we are addicted to shopping, we are addicted to food, we are addicted to prescription drugs, and we are addicted to anything else that gives us the pleasure that we crave.  We allow our televisions to do our thinking for us and our families are falling apart.  Our lives center around pleasing ourselves, and we have become one of the most narcissistic societies in the history of the world.  We are like a middle-aged man that has totally let himself go.  You know the guy who shows up for an important event in sandals, sweatpants and a stained t-shirt?  That is us.  We are only a shadow of what we once were as a nation, and we desperately need to change course.

So what is the solution?

Well, just like any addict, the first thing that we need to do is to admit that there is  a problem.  Until we admit how dramatically we have fallen, we are never going to be ready to make the changes that are necessary.

And yes, we have fallen a long, long way as a country.

The following are 24 facts that prove that America is a nation of slobs....

#1 Right now, approximately 36 percent of all Americans are obese.  It is being projected that number will rise to 42 percent by 2030.

#2 Back in 1962, only 13 percent of all Americans were obese.

#3 Medical costs related to obesity in the United States are estimated to be approximately $147 billion a year.

#4 All over America, our infrastructure is crumbling.  For example, in the most populated county in Alabama potholes the size of pizzas now litter the roads.

#5 The average American family purchases 200 pounds of meat per family member each year.

#6 Large numbers of cows that are killed for hamburger meat in America stand ankle-deep in their own manure all day long.

#7 The average American watches 28 hours of television every week.

#8 U.S. corporations sell more fast food and more soda than anyone else in the world by a very wide margin.

#9 The average American drinks more than 600 sodas every single year.  That is by far the most in the world.

#10 Of all the major industrialized nations, America is the most obese.  Mexico is in second place.

#11 Americans take more prescription drugs than anyone else on the planet.

#12 The United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use in the entire world.

#13 According to the Pew Research Center, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married.  Back in 1960, 72 percent of all U.S. adults were married.

#14 The United States has the highest divorce rate in the world by a very wide margin.

#15 According to one study, one out of every four teen girls in the United States has at least one sexually transmitted disease.

#16 The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate on the entire globe.

#17 The United States has the highest child abuse death rate on the entire globe.

#18 The United States produces more pornography than any other nation has in the history of the world.

#19 One survey found that an astounding 30 percent of all Internet traffic now goes to pornography websites.

#20 Consumer debt in America has increased by a staggering 1700% since 1971.

#21 There is more credit card debt in America than anywhere else in the world.

#22 There is more mortgage debt in America than anywhere else in the world.

#23 There is more student loan debt in America than anywhere else in the world.

#24 Nobody in the world gets more plastic surgery done than Americans do.

Have you read enough?

For even more signs that America is becoming a nation of slobs, you can check out one of my recent articles entitled "16 Signs That People Are Becoming Stupider".

The sad truth is that this nation is a complete and total mess and the decline is accelerating.

Many want to blame our politicians for all of our problems, but replacing all of our politicians would not fix any of the things listed above.

Yes, we definitely need different leadership, but each one of us also needs to look into our own hearts.

It is not just the government that needs to change.

The American people need to change as well.

So what do you think about this article?

Am I being too harsh on the American people?

Am I not being harsh enough?

Please leave a comment with your opinion below....

What would you do if someday the government made it mandatory for everyone to receive an implantable microchip for identification purposes?  Would you take it?  Such a scenario may not be as far off as you might think.  In the United States today, millions of dogs and cats have been microchipped, thousands of elderly Americans with Alzheimer's disease have been microchipped, and the U.S. military is developing "medical devices" that contain microchips to monitor the health of soldiers.  Once the government has microchips implanted in all of our soldiers, how long will it be before they want to put a microchip in all government employees for the sake of national security?  Once the government has microchips in all government employees, how long will it be before they want to put a microchip in you?  Of course this technology is not going to be "required" for average citizens any time soon.  For now, it will creep into our lives at an incremental pace.  But after enough people have voluntarily accepted the "benefits" of implantable microchips, it will only be a matter of time before they become mandatory.  Are you ready for that?

The plan to implant U.S. soldiers with implantable microchips was detailed in a recent article by Kate Knibbs....

The U.S. military plans to implant soldiers with medical devices, making them harder to kill with diseases.

The military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, announced plans to create nanosensors that monitor soldiers' health on the battlefield and keep doctors constantly abreast about potential health problems.

These technological "advances" are usually promoted in such a way that makes it difficult for the average citizen to get angry about them.  After all, who could be against keeping our soldiers alive and healthy?

But as they say, the path to hell was paved with good intentions.  It turns out that researches at Stanford University are also busy developing similar technology for the general public....

Nanotechnology continues to find a place in the medical field as well. Stanford University researchers are developing tiny robotic monitors that can diagnose illnesses, monitor vital stats and even deliver medicine into the bloodstream, similar to the devices that the military plans to create. The two projects have yet to link up, but their similar goals suggest the military could benefit from coordinating efforts with leading university scientists.

Would you let them put a microchip inside of you if it would supposedly keep you healthier?

As this kind of technology becomes more widespread, people will be told that they don't want to "miss out" on the great benefits that it provides.

The spread of implantable microchips is going to mostly be voluntary for right now.  Large numbers of Americans have already taken them, and that number is going to greatly increase in the years ahead.

A recent WND article contained some quotes from privacy expert Katherine Albrecht about how the widespread adoption of implantable microchips will primarily be through voluntary methods....

“It’s never going to happen that the government at gunpoint says, ‘You’re going to have a tracking chip,’” said Katherine Albrecht, who with Liz McIntyre authored “Spychips,” a book that warns of the threat to privacy posed by Radio Frequency Identification.

“It’s always in incremental steps. If you can put a microchip in someone that doesn’t track them … everybody looks and says, ‘Come on,’” she said. “It’ll be interesting seeing where we go.”

As this technology spreads, it will become much easier for various institutions to start making it a requirement.

For example, what happens someday if your employer requires you to get an implantable microchip for security reasons?

What happens someday if your bank requires you to get an implantable microchip in order to use your bank account?

Don't think that it can't happen.

All over the globe, there is an obsession with making "identity" more secure.

Just check out what is going on in India according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation....

In India, a massive effort is underway to collect biometric identity information for each of the country’s 1.2 billion people. The incredible plan, dubbed the “mother of all e-governance projects” by the Economic Times,has stirred controversy in India and beyond, raising serious concerns about the privacy and security of individuals’ personal data.

The plan is moving ahead at a clip under the auspices of the National Population Register (NPR) and the Unique ID (UID) programs, separately governed initiatives that have an agreement to integrate the data they collect to build the world’s largest biometric database. Upon enrollment, individuals are issued 12-digit unique ID numbers on chip-based identity cards. For residents who lack the necessary paperwork to obtain certain kinds of employment or government services, there’s strong incentive to get a unique ID. While the UID program is voluntary, enrollment in the NPR program is mandatory for all citizens.

How long do you think it will be before even more countries develop their own "Unique ID" programs?

We will be told that such programs are necessary to prevent identity fraud, to track criminals and terrorists, to crack down on tax evaders and to strengthen "national security".

The thing with a card is that it can always be lost, stolen or forged.

It seems inevitable that governments around the world will want something even more "secure" than a card at some point.

So will you allow the government to inject your "identity card" into your hand when the time comes?

But not all of these advanced microchips will be implantable.

As I have written about previously, some scientists are working on developing "edible microchips".  These edible microchips would be used by doctors to monitor your health.  The following description of these edible microchips comes from a recent article in the Daily Mail....

The sensor, which contains no battery, antenna or radio, creates a unique digital signature that is picked up and recorded by a patch attached to the patient's shoulder.

The patch, which also monitors bodily functions such as heart rate and temperature, sends this encrypted information to blue-tooth enabled smartphones or computers owned by the patient and their doctors and carers.

In this way, both patients and their doctors can work out exactly which pills have been taken. Medics can also interpret whether the patient is sleeping well, or taking enough exercise using the information transmitted from the patch.

Would you take an "edible microchip" if it would help your doctor take better care of you?

Other people will want to take implantable microchips because it will enable them to become more "connected" to our technology grid.

For example, if it was possible would you connect your brain directly to the Internet?

It may not be as far off as you might think.  An article on the website of the Science Channel recently asked the following question....

What if it were possible to connect your brain to the Internet, either wirelessly or through a cable, download digital information at high speed, and then translate it automatically into a chemical form that could be stored by your brain cells as memory?

That same article explained that the benefits of directly connecting our brains to the Internet could be absolutely amazing....

If you could pump data directly into your gray matter at, say, 50 mbps — the top speed offered by one major U.S. internet service provider — you’d be able to read a 500-page book in just under two-tenths of a second.

But wouldn't connecting your brain to the Internet also be incredibly dangerous?

Couldn't someone download "viruses" directly into your brain?

Couldn't someone find a way to "control" your brain remotely?

New technologies always bring new dangers with them.

We will be sold on the "benefits" of implantable microchips, but the public will rarely be told about the potential dangers.

Right now, there are millions of dogs and cats all over the country that have been injected with microchips.  In fact, some American cities are actually making it mandatory to get your pets microchipped.  We are told that this makes it much easier to return lost pets to their owners.

All over America, implantable microchips are being injected into thousands of elderly Americans living with Alzheimer's disease.  We are told that this makes it much easier to find them if they wander off and get lost.

But what are the dangers?

What would happen if a totalitarian government started requiring that all citizens have their "identities" put on a microchip and implanted into them?

It would certainly make it easier for a "Big Brother" government to watch, monitor and track everyone.

And it would become nearly impossible to live a normal life without getting an implant.

What would you do if you could not get a bank account without a microchip?

What would you do if you could not go shopping without a microchip?

What would you do if you could not get a job without a microchip?

What would you do if you could not conduct a single financial transaction without a microchip?

How would you live?

Certainly most people would be very tempted to take the microchip so that they could take care of their families and lead fairly normal lives.

Those that rebelled and didn't take the microchip would be ostracized and would be considered enemies of the state.  They would be hunted down and hauled off to prison.

Don't think that such a scenario is impossible.

Just think about how our society has changed in recent years.  It has become more like a giant prison every single day.

At some point in the future, implantable microchip technology will be used for nefarious purposes.

What will you do when that day arrives?

Despite what you may have heard from the mainstream media, Mitt Romney does not have the Republican nomination locked up.  In fact, he is rapidly losing delegates that almost everyone assumed that he already had in the bag.  To understand why this is happening, you have to understand the delegate selection process.  Each state has different rules for selecting delegates to the Republican national convention, and in many states the "voting" done by the public does not determine the allocation of delegates to particular candidates at all.  And the truth is that delegates are the only thing that really matters in this race.  In state after state, the Ron Paul campaign is focusing on the delegate selection process with laser-like precision, and it is paying off big time.  At this point, there is still a legitimate chance that Ron Paul will be able to win enough delegates to deny Mitt Romney the nomination on the first ballot at the Republican national convention in Tampa.  If Romney does not have the 1,144 delegates that he needs on the first ballot, then it becomes a brokered convention and anything becomes possible at that point.

Sadly, most Americans have no idea how this process really works.

For example, originally we were all told that Mitt Romney won Iowa.

Then, later on we were told that a mistake was made and that Rick Santorum actually won Iowa.

Well, it turns out that Ron Paul actually won 20 out of the 28 delegates in Iowa.  That is because the process of actually selecting the delegates occurred long after the voting by the public was over.

So what happens if the Ron Paul campaign is able to produce similar results in state after state?

The Ron Paul campaign is very organized, very motivated and they understand the rules of the game.  As a recent Politico article detailed, there are huge amounts of unbound delegates out there that are still up for grabs....

There are roughly 30 states and territories where delegates aren’t bound to a particular candidate. The majority of the other states, according to a number of party officials, call for delegates to be bound for a first round of balloting but not the ensuing rounds.

“The dirty little secret is: At the end of the day, these guys and gals can vote any way they want,” said a Republican who has attended national conventions for decades. “Each state has different (laws) on pledged delegates.”

In many states, the "official" results of voting done by the public mean next to nothing.  The talking heads on television often tell us how many delegates are "projected" to go to a particular candidate, but as we have seen in Iowa and in so many other states, those "projections" are basically meaningless.

A recent Salon article discussed how the delegate selection process really works and how the Ron Paul campaign is using these rules to shake up the game....

In many caucus states, the “official” results that most people saw this winter were from nonbinding straw polls conducted in conjunction with precinct-level caucuses. But when it comes to choosing national convention delegates, the real action is at district caucuses and state conventions. In the past, this distinction hasn’t mattered much, but for the Paul forces – who lack the numbers to win statewide primaries but have the devotion to pack any room, anywhere, at any time – it has offered an inviting loophole. When turnout is small and no one is looking, the Paul folks can win, and that’s what’s been happening in a number of states.

To Paul die-hards, this will all culminate in a surprise for the ages in Tampa, with the political world suddenly realizing that Romney actually doesn’t have the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination, thereby allowing Paul to extract major concessions or even steal the nomination for himself.

So could Ron Paul really deny Mitt Romney the Republican nomination?

At this point, nobody really seems to know what the real delegate count is.

Websites such as The Real 2012 Delegate Count are more accurate than most sources in the mainstream media, but even that site has been underestimating the true number of Ron Paul delegates.

Right now, Mitt Romney is not anywhere close to having the number of delegates that he needs for the nomination and Ron Paul just keeps picking up more delegates with each passing week.

For example, a Washington Post article that was posted on Sunday reported that Ron Paul just achieved a stunning delegate victory in Nevada....

Despite former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s overwhelming victory in the Nevada caucuses, Texas Rep. Ron Paul has won a majority of the state’s delegates to the party’s national convention later this year in Tampa, Florida.

Thanks to organized Paul supporters, who have been working to increase their candidate’s support at state conventions around the country, 22 of the 25 Nevada delegates up for grabs will be Paul supporters. (Another three are automatic delegates.)

That was a state that Romney supposedly "won".

It looks like Romney has a real problem.

In state after state, Ron Paul is gobbling up delegates.  The following are quotes from a recent Huffington Post article about what the Ron Paul campaign has been able to achieve in the past few weeks....

-"Sure enough, Paul has already won 20 out of the 24 delegates allocated in Minnesota, by winning a majority of the congressional district contests."

-"In Louisiana, Paulites "dominated" the congressional district caucuses this past Saturday, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Paul's supporters carried four of the state's congressional districts, and are guaranteed at least 17 of 46 delegates in the Bayou State, with the potential to pick up more at the state convention on June 2."

-"The other state that Benton likely has his eye on is Colorado, where the Denver Post reported in mid-April that Paul supporters and Santorum backers combined forces to win a "stunning upset" at the state convention, guaranteeing that about half of the state's 33 delegates will be for Paul in August."

And look what just happened in Maine according to USA Today....

In votes leading to the close of the two-day Maine convention, Paul supporters were elected to 21 of the 24 delegate spots from Maine to the GOP national convention in Tampa, Fla.

So Ron Paul is definitely accumulating a huge pile of his own delegates, but even many so-called "pledged delegates" for Romney could end up playing a huge role for Ron Paul.

In some states, Ron Paul supporters have been getting elected into delegate slots that are supposed to go to Romney.  This is highly unusual, and it could really shake things up at the national convention.  As a Salon article recently explained there will be quite a few Ron Paul supporters that will actually be going to Tampa "disguised" as Romney delegates....

Besides the pledged delegates he’s won so far and the extras he’s collecting through caucuses and state conventions, Paul will also have some supporters disguised as Romney delegates. To understand how this works, just consider his campaign’s mischief in Massachusetts, where Romney won 72 percent of the primary vote – and with it, a monopoly on the state’s pledged convention delegates. But to determine who would fill those pledged delegate slots, the state GOP held caucuses recently, and the Paul crowd came out in force, gobbling up 16 of the 19 available positions. In how many other states will this happen, or has it already happened?

But those delegates are required to vote for Romney, right?

Not so fast.

The Ron Paul campaign could actually ask those "disguised" Romney delegates to abstain during the first round of voting in Tampa.  If Romney did not win on the first ballot, those delegates would then become unbound and would be able to support Ron Paul.

In fact, Ronald Reagan considered using this tactic against Gerald Ford in 1976.  The following is from a 1976 article entitled "Reagan Forces May ‘Steal’ Ford Votes"....

“In secret strategy sessions, Reagan aides have toyed with the idea of asking delegates to abstain as long as their state laws require them to honor the primary verdicts.  This would prevent the President from riding up an early-ballot victory.  Then, in subsequent ballots, they could legally switch to Reagan.

Delegates have abstained from voting before.  Back in 2008, at least 14 delegates abstained from voting at the Republican national convention.

So what would happen if the Ron Paul campaign was able to get 100 or 150 "Romney delegates" to abstain from voting during the first ballot in Tampa?

That is a very intriguing question.

And remember, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich also have significant numbers of delegates pledged to each of them.

So Ron Paul does not need to accumulate 1,144 delegates himself to deny Mitt Romney the nomination on the first ballot.  He just needs to keep Romney from getting to 1,144.

The race for the Republican nomination is not over.

You can find a state by state breakdown of delegate voting rules right here.

It is not too late to get involved.

If nobody gets to 1,144 on the first ballot in Tampa, it becomes a "brokered convention" and anyone can become the nominee - even someone that is not running right now.

So if you are not satisfied with Mitt Romney as the Republican nominee, don't lose hope yet.

The game is still being played.

It would be a challenge, but if his supporters get energized enough, it certainly is possible that Ron Paul could still win enough delegates to deny Mitt Romney the Republican nomination on the first ballot in Tampa.

And if that happens, anything is possible.

Do you know what the fastest growing religion in America is?  It isn't Christianity.  According to the latest U.S. Religion Census that was just released on May 1, 2012, the fastest growing religion in America is Islam.  The data for the census was compiled by the Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, and the results were released by the Association of Religion Data Archives.  From the year 2000 to the year 2010, the census found that the number of Muslims living inside the United States increased by about 1 million to 2.6 million - a stunning increase of 66.7 percent.  That is an astounding rate of growth.  Meanwhile, most Christian denominations had rates of growth that were far below the overall rate of population growth in the United States, and some Christian denominations actually lost members.  Sadly, when Barack Obama once said that "we are no longer a Christian nation" he wasn't too far off the mark.  Christianity is rapidly losing influence and other religions such as Islam are rapidly gaining members and building new places of worship.  As other major religions such as Islam continue to grow in the United States, it is inevitable that this will reshape America in many different ways in the years ahead.

So what about other religious groups?

How did they fare according to the U.S. Religion Census?

Well, the following are some of the growth rates for major religious organizations from the year 2000 to the year 2010....

Mormons: +45.5%

Evangelical Protestants: +1.7% (far behind the overall rate of population growth)

Catholics: -5.0%

Mainline Protestants: -12.8% (an astounding decline)

But it was Islam that experienced the most explosive growth.

According to Ihsan Bagby, a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Kentucky, there were about 1,200 mosques in America back in the year 2000.

According to this new census, there are now 2,106.

All over the United States we are seeing "mega-mosques" being constructed, and in many cases the funding is coming from overseas.

And these mega-mosques are not going unused.  In some areas of the country, Islamic communities are experiencing absolutely explosive growth.

The following example comes from a recent USA Today article....

Imam Muhammad Musri, president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, saw growth explode by a whopping 473 percent in and around Orlando's Orange County, according to the RCMS study, and he thinks the growth is actually double the 10,000 new Muslims reported by the study.

He said Muslim growth has been fueled by a wave of post-9/11 converts, American-born children of immigrants having kids of their own, and jobs in the booming medical industry. In central Florida, he said, Muslims are just following everyone else in search of "better weather, cheaper prices, cheaper homes."

A lot of this growth is being fueled by immigration.  A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center back in 2007 discovered that 39 percent of all adult Muslims living in America were immigrants that had arrived in the United States since 1990.

This rapid influx of Muslims is reshaping communities all over America.  For example, Muslim students now account for approximately 10 percent of the total number of students in the New York City School District.

And all over the country many school districts are now changing their school calendars to observe Islamic holidays.

In fact, in Dearborn, Michigan football practices are actually scheduled around Ramadan.  The following is from a Fox News article....

In Dearborn, Mich., where schools are closed on both the day before and the day of Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha, the predominantly-Muslim football team has switched its two-a-day summer practice schedule to 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. during Ramadan, so that Muslim players -- who fast while the sun is up – won't be forced to practice in the heat without drinking water.

The move received little backlash in Dearborn, because most of the football players are Muslims.

Dearborn is located just outside of Detroit, and it contains one of the densest Arab communities outside of the Middle East.  Each day, the local mosque's call to prayer can be clearly heard all over the city.  Dearborn is a clear example of why we can no longer call America a "Christian nation".

But Islam is not the only non-Christian religion that is growing rapidly in America.

The latest U.S. Religion Census found that non-Christian groups grew by 32 percent overall from the year 2000 to the year 2010.

Meanwhile, as I have written about previously, the decline of Christianity in America is accelerating.

Back in 1990, one survey found that 86 percent of all Americans identified themselves as "Christian" of one sort or another.

By 2008, only 76 percent of all Americans identified themselves as "Christian" of one sort or another.

Meanwhile, atheism and the "not religious" are experiencing huge gains in numbers.  For example, the U.S. Census Bureau says that the number of Americans with "no religion" more than doubled between 1990 and 2008.

Even many of those that still apply the label of "Christian" to themselves are not very committed.  The latest U.S. Religion Census found that approximately 150 million Americans are not actively engaged with any religious community at all.  That is nearly half of the population.

So America is changing.

It is becoming less religious and it is becoming less Christian.

What is your opinion about all of this?

Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below....

Does it ever seem to you like people are becoming stupider than ever?  There have always been people out there that have been a few cards short of a full deck, but these days it seems like more people than ever are a few fries short of a Happy Meal.  Certainly our education system plays a major role in this.  Our children are being systematically "dumbed-down" by our public schools and millions of them are graduating from high school as dumb as a rock.  And the endless hours of mindless entertainment that most of us are addicted to certainly is not helping matters either.  Will we eventually become a society where only a small minority possess critical thinking skills?  In our world today, logic and reason seem to be in very short supply and the sheeple seem to have taken over.  As I wrote about recently, in this day and age it is more imperative than ever that we all learn to think for ourselves.  Unfortunately, most people do not seem to be doing that.  Most people seem content to let their televisions do their thinking for them.  Way too many people have a blank look in their eyes as if they aren't even fully there.  But when people are not thinking clearly, they tend to act very foolishly.  From the very top of our society to the very bottom, people are doing some really stupid things.

The following are 16 signs that people are becoming stupider....

#1 According to a poll recently conducted for Reuters, about 10 percent of the entire global population is convinced that we could witness the end of the world in 2012.  When we get to 2013, a similar poll will probably find that 10 percent of the entire global population is convinced that the world may not survive until 2014.

#2 A whole host of medical studies have shown a connection between cell phones and cancer.  The World Health Organization has even admitted that cell phones can cause cancer.  But nearly all of us continue to use cell phones very heavily.

#3 Genetically modified crops have been shown to have some very negative effects on the environment and on human health.  But the USDA has approved 80 different genetically engineered crops and has never denied a single one.  At this point, approximately 70 percent of all processed foods in the United States contain genes that have been genetically engineered.

#4 The TSA is entrusted with making sure that no terrorists get on board our airplanes.  But the TSA has been hiring new employees without even conducting background checks first to make sure that the new employees are not terrorists....

In a move that could affect security at airports around the nation, the Transportation Security Administration confirmed Wednesday it had such a backlog of background security checks, airport employers were allowed to hire any employee needed.

TSA officials said the background checks are delayed, but they are processing them as fast as they can. 

TSA also will complete background checks on accepted applicants at a later date.

#5 In Los Angeles, it was discovered that four TSA employees were taking huge bribes to allow suitcases full of "cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana" to pass through airport security.  But the federal government thinks the TSA is doing such a good job that their duties have been expanded to include buses and subway stations.

#6 Barack Obama wants to convince all of us that it is not a big deal that he is now admitting that the "New York girlfriend" in his 1995 autobiography "Dreams From My Father" was actually a "composite character".  Tens of millions of Americans will believe him.

#7 Down in Florida recently, a frightened wife was able to struggle free from her abusive husband who was choking her and fire a single warning shot into the ceiling.  So who is the law coming down on?  It is the abused wife that is going to be sentenced to 20 years in prison.

#8 A total of $205,075 was spent to move a single bush that was standing in the way of a highway-renovation project in California.  It turns out that an identical bush could have been purchased at a local store for less than 16 bucks....

The bush—a Franciscan manzanita—was a specimen of a commercially cultivated species of shrub that can be purchased from nurseries for as little as $15.98 per plant. The particular plant in question, however, was discovered in the midst of the City of San Francisco, in the median strip of a highway, and was deemed to be the last example of the species in the “wild.”

#9 The federal government is telling us that old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs have to be phased out because they are supposedly bad for the environment.  But the new CFL light bulbs are actually worse for the environment.  They are filled with mercury and they are so toxic that if they are broken they require special clean up procedures.

#10 Obama's top science adviser, John Holdren, has suggested that we should extensively use geoengineering to purposely cool the climate of the earth.  The following is how CBS News described one of his ideas for accomplishing this....

Shooting sulfur particles (like those produced by power plants and volcanoes, for example) into the upper atmosphere, an idea that gained steam when it was proposed by Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen in 2006. It would be "basically mimicking the effect of volcanoes in screening out the incoming sunlight," Holdren said.

Apparently Holdren never watched The Matrix, because if he did he would know that blocking out the sun is a really, really bad idea.

#11 There are 1.4 million gang members living inside the United States today and illegal immigration is totally out of control.  But the Obama administration has decided to make border security even weaker by pulling 900 National Guard troops away from the U.S./Mexico border.

#12 In Maryland, one man recently called 911 to report to the police that someone had just stolen his marijuana.  Needless to say, the man never got his marijuana back.

#13 It has been estimated that prescription drugs kill 200,000 Americans every single year.  Yet Americans continue to gobble prescription drugs down at a faster pace then ever before.

#14 Burger King is testing a new ice cream sundae that comes with two strips of bacon crammed into it.  There are some Americans out there that will actually eat such a thing.

#15 Right now, China is holding over a trillion dollars of U.S. government debt.  But that didn't stop the U.S. government from sending China 17.8 million dollars in foreign aid during 2011.

#16 According to Gallup, if the presidential election was held today 46 percent of all U.S. voters would vote for Mitt Romney and 45 percent of all U.S. voters would vote for Barack Obama.

Do you have any examples to add to this list?  Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below....