It was reported this week that over 1,500 IRS employees were caught cheating on their taxes, and many of them even got promotions. Most of the employees who were caught in the recent investigation haven't even been fired.

Russell George, Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, assured the public in a statement this week that there will be consequences for the employees who were caught using their positions to avoid taxes.

"Given its critical role in federal tax administration, the IRS must ensure that its employees comply with the tax law in order to maintain the public's confidence. Willful violation of the law by IRS employees should not be taken lightly," George said.

In a statement, the IRS said that the employees will face strong discipline but will not be fired."The IRS is committed to ensuring that employees meet their tax compliance responsibilities. Nonetheless, the IRS agrees that we can improve this process," the statement read.

One day, you're just moving through life with everyone else in your office or at your church, and then, for whatever reason, the reality of how tenuous our current lifestyle is, hits you squarely between the eyes. You realize that electricity and grocery stores and transportation are all things that you've been taking for granted and that these things could actually disappear. Maybe you're concerned about a natural disaster. Perhaps you saw something on the evening news. It could even be a job loss that puts these things out of reach.

But whatever the reason, suddenly, you know in your heart that you need to prepare for a different type of future, just in case.

Where on earth do you even start with something like that?

Start with information

Before you start making enormous purchases or moving your family to a bunker, take some time to learn.

Information.

That is the key that unlocks the door to preparedness.

Michael Snyder is very well known for his blogs 'End of the American Dream' and 'The Economic Collapse' and from the sheer number of other sites that republish his articles.

Michael is also the author of the book Get Prepared Now: Why a Great Crisis is Coming and How You Can Survive It, which he wrote with Barbara Fix, and the novel The Beginning of the End, a mystery thriller set in the near future, both of which are available on Amazon. He also has a new DVD called "Economic Collapse, World War III & The Death of America", which is available on ProphecyClubResources.com.

In our interview with Michael, we discussed faltering economy, the upcoming economic collapse, prepping, Ferguson and the American police state, terrorism, geopolitics, Russia, and earth changes, prophecy, and more.

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Parents are outraged after learning about a Bay Area camp counselor's arrest for allegedly possessing hundreds of images of child pornography.

Edgar Covarrubias, 27, an employee at Santa Clara County's Walden West Science Camp, was arrested Thursday. Police say they found the child porn images on his computer and now several camp parents want to know if he secretly took any pictures of their children.

"It makes you physically ill to know that we sent them somewhere that was supposed to be a fun, safe once-in-a-lifetime memory," parent Amanda Barnett said.


Barnett's 5th grade daughter attended Walden West Science Camp near Cupertino and the kids all knew Covarrubias. He was arrested for possessing more than 300 child porn images and video. Police found them on his computer at the overnight camp that teaches children about nature.

Teaming up with the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, police in Hawaii have caused controversy after arresting sixteen women at local massage parlors and relaxation spas for sexual assault after goading, and even forcing them to engage in sexual activity.

Until just a year ago, Hawaii police officers were legally allowed to have sex with prostitutes as part of investigations. After intense public pressure however, state lawmakers changed that law.

In order to have a successful prosecution, undercover officers must get sex-workers to agree on a sex act and a price. If no specific price is agreed on, no prostitution charges can be filed.

Sex-workers know this, and now in Hawaii, they also know police can't have sex with them so police are trying to get around that difficulty, an attorney representing several of the women charged, Myles Breiner said.

Hence the sexual assault charges. The women could not be charged with prostitution because they never verbally agreed.

Breiner says several of his clients were forced to touch the officers after refusing their solicitations for sex. In one instance, at a massage parlor called Orchid Relaxation on April 30, Breiner claims an officer disrobed, took the woman's hand and forcibly put it on his genitals.

"To charge [the women] with sex[ual] assault in the fourth degree is so ludicrous it's such an abuse of authority," Breiner said. "They're being compelled to engage in a crime they never engaged in. None of these women had any intention of sexually assaulting these undercover officers."

Since 2011, Minnesota has been doing quite well for itself. The state has created more than 170,000 jobs, according to the Huffington Post. Its unemployment rate stands at 3.6% — the fifth-lowest in the country, and far below the nationwide rate of 5.7% — and the state government boasts a budget surplus of $1 billion. Forbes considers Minnesota one of the top 10 in the country for business.

Given that Minnesota's governor is a well-connected millionaire whose family controls the Target fortune, one could be forgiven for thinking this was the result of embracing the corporate world. But in fact, over the past four years, the state has undergone a series of policy reforms that most of the corporate world decries: It has imposed higher taxes on the wealthy and raised the minimum wage.

When each of these progressive policies was initially proposed, Minnesota Republicans made dire predictions about their effects on the economy, and argued that bleeding-heart concerns about economic fairness would stifle growth. Despite all the warnings, Minnesota's economy hasn't tanked. Instead, it's sailing with greater force than it has in years.

How Minnesota did it

The progressive economic policies in the North Star State came into being after the election of Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton. In 2010, Dayton surprised many political observers in Minnesota when he managed to win the governor's mansion, the first Democrat to seize it in more than two decades. His political career up until that point was mainly defined by failure, despite the fact that he was a billionaire heir with countless resources.

Dayton's margin of victory wasn't impressive, but he was eventually able to make a dramatic mark on the direction of the state's public policies. He instituted a wide variety of progressive policies that rendered him the "most liberal governor in the country in terms of his willingness to raise taxes and to spend," University of Minnesota political scientist Larry Jacobs told Mother Jones.

In the last few years, Minnesota took a number of measures to make its taxation and wages more progressive. Mother Jones reports that Dayton targeted the top 2% with a tax raise — "one of the largest hikes in state history." Corporate taxes increased. The state income tax on the highest earners increased to 9.85% in 2013, making it the fourth highest in the nation, according to the Tax Foundation.

The otherwise quiet Arizona town of Paradise Valley recently attained the kind of surveillance you would expect to find in the city, albeit with a design that is made to blend in with the desert. The townspeople have been shocked to find that the city has been installing cameras hidden in fake cacti along the roadways of the city limits. A local Fox affiliate was sent to investigate the cameras and found that the town leaders and police were initially reluctant to explain themselves.

Fans of "American Sniper" Chris Kyle have threatened to rape and kill former RT anchor Abby Martin for criticizing the deceased Navy SEAL and creating a T-shirt they find offensive.

"Some psychotic Chris Kyle fan just doxxed me & my family's personal information on a bunch of sniper forums. If anything happens to me or them you know who to blame. These are the real f*cking terrorists," she wrote on her Facebook page.

Martin had criticized Kyle in the past for describing Iraqis as "savages" in his book. She also described the American Sniper movie as "dangerous propaganda that sanitizes a mass murdering psycho." But it was her shirt that appears to have set off a campaign of harassment against her.

This week, conservative websites posted a picture of Martin wearing a "F*ck Chris Kyle" shirt. She had uploaded a photo of the shirt to her Instagram account last week. One website, which incorrectly identified her as a "liberal artist," called on readers to "publicly shame" her for her "treasonous actions."

Another such website complained: "Chris Kyle is an American hero who is an easy target because he is no longer alive. Abbey Martin [sic], is just a coward hiding behind the freedoms that our military has granted her when she was born on this great land that we call the United States of America."

The reaction on social media was even more visceral. Users of Twitter and Facebook have mentioned raping and beheading her, threatened to murder her, told her to kill herself, and bombarded her with misogynistic insults. Addicting Info reported that one person called on American Sniper fans to "put on our raping shoes and find this b*tch."

"F*cking c*nt. How dare you disgrace his name like that. He gave his life so you can have yours. F*cking b*tch. Don't worry I know where you live thanks to your ip address. And don't worry I'm a Marine," said Jamie Lugo in a message shared by Martin. "So u won't see me coming. I'm going to cause you pain beyond your imagination." He later added: "Tic toc times running out."

Other journalists, including Rania Khalek and Max Blumenthal, have been subjected to death threats and online harassment for their criticism the film American Sniper.

"Very telling that the #ChrisKyle fans who tell me he 'died for my freedom' to wear clothes are threatening to rape & kill me for free speech," Martin wrote on Twitter.

Liu was sent to Ivanovo, about 300 kilometers northeast of Moscow, in 1939, in the midst of Japan's war of aggression against China, which began in 1937. Her mother, a revolutionary, had died earlier in a Kuomintang prison, and her father, an officer fighting in the Chinese Red Army against the Japanese, had no time to take care of her and her two brothers.

"One day he told us that on the northern border of China there is a very big country, and you will go there. And so my brother and I went to the Soviet Union. I was 12 years old. With us were three other kids," Liu recalled.

"We were on the road for three months, and came to Ivanovo shortly after the beginning of the winter holidays. I was worried that I would have to start my studies from the beginning. After all, I didn't understand anything in Russian...A year later my younger brother also came to Ivanovo. We were happy to be together, and I was very happy knowing that I had the opportunity to study. In China too I had wanted to learn, but there was no opportunity. The staff at the children's home was very good. Everyone was friends. Chinese or not, we did not discriminate. We were all the same, and we lived as a family."

A record number of Americans gave up their US citizenship in the first quarter of 2015, according to IRS data. This is blamed on the taxation of income earned outside the US, along with laws expanding offshore bank account and asset reporting.

A total of 1,335 people renounced US citizenship during the first three months of the year, topping the previous record by 18 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The new figure puts 2015 on track to exceed last year's 3,415 renunciations, which is an all-time record.

The data released by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) includes the names of those who renounced their citizenship, but not their reasons for doing so. However, it comes as the US government is becoming more aggressive when it comes to the assets of the estimated 6 million Americans who live abroad.

The United States is the only country within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development that taxes citizens wherever they reside.

American citizens who live abroad can exclude as much as $100,800 in earned income and can receive tax credits for payments to foreign governments. However, US tax liabilities can apply to children born to Americans abroad. In many cases, there are only partial offsets available for double taxation.

The paperwork involved for US citizens living abroad can be so complex that it requires professional help from accountants and lawyers - resulting in incredibly high fees for a relatively simple tax return.