Vice President Joe Biden is trying to assure survivalists and those preparing for doomsday that they will still be able to protect themselves in case of disaster even if assault weapons are banned because shotguns are more effective weapons for defense.

During a Google Hangout discussion about gun control, YouTube video blogger Philip DeFranco asked the vice president why an assault weapons ban was necessary if the number of murders had gone down since the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act temporarily banning some military-style rifles expired in 2004.

"So what would you say to the people who say, yes, you are infringing on our rights, not for sporting or for hunting, but in California, everyone talks about the big earthquake or some terrible natural disaster as a last line of defense," DeFranco wondered. "What would you say to those people?"

"A shotgun will keep you a lot safer - a double-barreled shotgun - than the assault weapons in somebody's hands that doesn't know how to use it, even one that does know how to use it," Biden advised. "You know, it's hard to use an assault weapon and hit something than it is a shotgun."

Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro said unidentified groups had entered the country with the aim of assassinating him and the head of the National Assembly as President Hugo Chavez recovers from cancer in Cuba.

Maduro provided no proof of the claim, made at a rally on Wednesday to mark the end of a dictatorship in the OPEC nation 55 years ago, but he said action would be taken shortly.

"For several weeks we've been following groups that have infiltrated the country with the aim of making attempts on the life of (Assembly head) Diosdado Cabello and my own," Maduro told a crowd of red-shirted "Chavista" supporters. "They will not manage it against either of us."

Chavez named Maduro as his preferred successor before he went to Cuba in early December for surgery, his fourth operation in 18 months for an undisclosed form of cancer in his pelvis that was first diagnosed in mid-2011.

Chavez has not been seen in public nor heard from since then. Venezuela's government says his condition is improving after he suffered multiple complications caused by the December 11 surgery.

Officials say he is in "good spirits" but no date has been set for his return home. Maduro said he and the energy minister would travel to Havana on Wednesday to see Chavez.

The Russian Defense Ministry is attempting to clampdown on homosexuality with a new handbook that recommends recruits and contractors be checked for genital tattoos, like a the image of a "face" on the recruit's penis.

The Russian newspaper Izvestia on Thursday published details about how recruits would be given a thorough examination and face questioning about their sexual history.

Signs of "promiscuity" could indicate mental instability, addictive personality and suicidal tendencies, according to the documents.

"The reasons for tattooing may indicate a low cultural and educational level," according a machine translation of the handbook provided by Google. "If set to the impact of external incentives, such as persuasion, direct coercion, it will be evidence of compliance of young men, his tendency to obey the will of another."

There is a clear consensus among the global elite that overpopulation is the primary cause of the most important problems that the world is facing and that something desperately needs to be done about it. They truly believe that humans are a plague upon the earth and that we will literally destroy the planet if we are left to our own devices. To the elite, everything from global warming to our growing economic problems can be directly traced back to the lack of population control. They warn that if nothing is done about the exploding population, we will be facing a future full of poverty, war and suffering on a filthy, desolate planet.

They complain that it "costs too much" to keep elderly patients that are terminally ill alive, and they eagerly promote abortion for babies that are "not wanted" because they would be "too much of a burden" on society. Anything that reduces the human population in any way is a good thing for those that believe in this philosophy. This twisted philosophy is being promoted in our movies, in our television shows, in our music, in countless books, on many of the most prominent websites in the world, and it is being taught at nearly all of the most important colleges and universities on the planet.

The people promoting this philosophy have very, very deep pockets, and they are actually convinced that they are helping to "save the world" by trying to reduce the size of the human population. In fact, many of them are entirely convinced that we are in a "life or death" struggle for the fate of the planet, and that if humanity does not willingly choose to embrace population control soon, then a solution will have to be "forced" upon them.

Yes, I know that all of this may sound like something out of a science fiction novel. But there are a whole lot of people out there that are absolutely obsessed with this stuff, and many of them are in very prominent positions around the globe.

The following are 30 population control quotes which show that the elite truly believe that humans are a plague upon the earth and that a great culling is necessary...

In a 155-page report, four US nuclear experts have called upon the Obama administration to impose tougher economic sanctions against Iran and resort to overt operations through using warplanes and missiles on Iranian nuclear sites.

Apart from the fact that morbid mindset of this nature only helps fan up chaos and serves as an impetus to widespread pandemonium in the region, any mention of any such policy let alone an adoption of it will gradually terminate in an endless array of military legitimizations.

Co-authored by Mark Dubowitz, who runs Zionist-controlled Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and David Albright, a physicist who heads the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) and who is responsible for concocting lies and myths about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and drawing the country into an abysmal vortex of destruction and devastation, the report can be but seen in the light of yet another overtly brash attempt by the US to push ahead with further militarism in the Middle East.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified Wednesday in a lengthy set of hearings on the Benghazi attacks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She spoke repeatedly of a growing jihadist threat in the region, deficiencies in the lead-up to and aftermath of the attack at the U.S. mission, and the administration's role in addressing both. Here are six key takeaways from the testimony:

1. Clinton acknowledged the 'spreading jihadist threat'

The secretary of state emphasized the "global movement" at work in a post-Arab Spring Middle East and North Africa in her remarks to the Senate:

"We now face a spreading jihadist threat," Clinton said. "We have driven a lot of the operatives out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, killed a lot of them, including [Osama] Bin Laden."

"But this is a global movement," Clinton said. "We can kill leaders, but until we help establish strong democratic institutions, until we do a better job with values and relationships, we will be faced with this level of instability." [...]

"This is a great opportunity as well as a serious threat to our country," Clinton said, referring to the Arab Spring. "It's not going to be easy. They [these new governments] have no experience with democracy, they don't have any real experience among the leaders in running countries and doing security."

Dr. Kevin Barrett, one of America's best-known critics of the War on Terror, has raised questions about the death of Aaron Swartz, a prominent info-warrior and critic of President Obama's "kill list."

"As with so many freemasonic assassinations, including that of 'DC Madam' Deborah Jean Palfrey, Swartz was hanged. Naturally the police are calling it suicide," Dr. Barrett wrote in an article titled "Is Obama killing kill list critics?" published on Veterans Today.

According to Barrett, "Swartz's death raises the obvious question: Can you criticize Obama's barbarian, unconstitutional 'kill list' without ending up on it yourself?"

A Republican lawmaker in New Mexico introduced a bill on Wednesday that would legally require victims of rape to carry their pregnancies to term in order to use the fetus as evidence for a sexual assault trial.

House Bill 206, introduced by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R), would charge a rape victim who ended her pregnancy with a third-degree felony for "tampering with evidence."

"Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime," the bill says.

"Word on the national security street is that General James Mattis is being given the bum's rush out of his job as commander of Central Command, and is being told to vacate his office several months earlier than planned," reports veteran national security correspondent Thomas E. Ricks.

It now appears likely that Gen. Mattis, a Marine Corps legend, will leave his post as head of America's most important combatant command in March, several months earlier than planned. Ricks continues:

A Geneva-based team will examine reports of civilian deaths and the legality of the U.S.'s extrajudicial killings.

The U.N. announced Thursday the launch of its investigation into targeted killings carried out by the U.S. and its allies. U.N. special rapporteur Ben Emmerson, who monitors counter-terrorism programs, will lead the Geneva-based investigation, which will look at civilian deaths in drone strikes and the legality of extradjudicial executions.

As Salon reported last year when Emmerson first announced the U.N. project, the human rights attorney told a Harvard conference that his team would be weighing up evidence as to whether the Obama administration was guilty of war crimes. He said:

[It is] alleged that since President Obama took office at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims and more than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners. [U.N. consultant, professor of human rights] Christof Heyns ... has described such attacks, if they prove to have happened, as war crimes. I would endorse that view.

The investigation's launch comes just as the Obama administration finalizes a manual on guidelines for targeted killings, further cementing kill lists into the U.S. national security apparatus.