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A New Incident In The Persian Gulf Has Once Again Brought Us To The Brink Of War With Iran

On Wednesday, five Iranian gunboats attempted to seize a British oil tanker as it was traveling through the Persian Gulf.  As you will see below, this was apparently done in retaliation for an incident which happened in Gibraltar less than a week earlier.  British Royal Marines captured a tanker that was reportedly taking Iranian oil to Syria, and the Iranian government warned the British that there would be “consequences” for that action.  Apparently the Iranians felt that since the British grabbed an oil tanker that they should return the favor, and they may have gotten away with it if a British warship had not quickly intervened.  No shots were fired, and the five Iranian gunboats quickly left the scene after the British warship arrived.  But this move by the Iranians will be seen by the western powers as a direct threat to freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf, and many of President Trump’s advisers will undoubtedly be begging him to send a “message” to Iran by taking direct military action.

Last month, President Trump called off U.S. airstrikes against Iran with only minutes to spare, and if those airstrikes had gone ahead we might be at war with Iran right now.

That is literally how close we are to a major war erupting in the Middle East, and that is why what happened on Wednesday is so alarming…

Five Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps gunboats tried to seize a British oil tanker in the Persian Gulf Wednesday but backed off after a British warship approached, a senior U.S. defense official told Fox News.

The British warship was said to have been less than 5 miles behind the tanker but soon intercepted the Iranian boats and threatened to open fire. A manned U.S. reconnaissance aircraft was above as well, the official said, adding that Iranian forces left without opening fire.

Could the Iranians actually be this stupid?

After all, what in the world did they hope to accomplish?

Apparently, the Iranians were intending to retaliate for an incident that took place less than a week ago…

The comments from Hassan Rouhani come after British Royal Marines joined authorities in Gibraltar in capturing the tanker amid suspicions that it was trying to provide crude oil to Bashar Assad’s Syrian regime – an ally of the Islamic Republic.

“You are an initiator of insecurity and you will understand its repercussions,” Rouhani was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying Wednesday during a Cabinet meeting, adding that the seizure of the ship was “mean and wrong.”

A day earlier, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Iran’s armed forces chief of staff, told the Tasim news agency that Tehran will give an “appropriate answer” to Britain following their actions.

If the Iranians had been successful in grabbing the British tanker on Wednesday, what then?

The Iranians have got to know that taking this sort of aggressive action is only going to make war even more likely.

There are many in the west that are just itching for a war with Iran, and now Iran may have just given them the justification that they need to start launching airstrikes.

But maybe the Iranians are crazy enough to want a war too.  Without a doubt, Iran is run by a bunch of apocalyptic nutjobs, and none of them appear to be thinking straight.  For example, just consider the following statement from Iranian cleric Mohammad Ali Movahedi-Kermani…

Iranian cleric Mohammad Ali Movahedi-Kermani told a sermon in Tehran that the Islamic republic is ready for war with the US.

He said: “Think of an attack only if you want to change the color of the Persian Gulf waters from azure to red.”

And Iranian military official Hossein Nejat made headlines all over the world this week when he said this…

Commander Nejat said: “American bases are within the range of our missiles.

“Our missiles will destroy their aircraft carriers if they make a mistake.

“Americans are very well aware of the consequences of a military confrontation with Iran.”

Unfortunately, Commander Nejat is actually quite correct.  The Iranians have a large stockpile of extremely lethal Sunburn anti-ship missiles which they purchased from the Russians and Chinese over the years.

If the order is given, U.S. warships will be going to the bottom of the Persian Gulf, and once that happens all of the major news networks will be breathlessly pounding the war drums.

So we better hope that the Iranians don’t get too tempted by the sitting ducks that we currently have in the region.  If they decide to launch their missiles, World War 3 will become inevitable.

And even a limited military confrontation that closes the Strait of Hormuz for an extended period of time would be catastrophic.  According to one study, the price of oil could go as high as $325 a barrel if the Strait of Hormuz was closed for an extended period of time.

What do you think that would do to the global economy?

For a while there, it looked like tensions were starting to cool off just a little bit, but now we are right on the precipice of war once again.

And we definitely do not want a war with Iran.  Such a war would set the stage for scenarios that most of us don’t even like to think about.  Most people seem to believe that such a war would be limited to the Middle East, but the truth is that the Iranians would unleash terror attacks inside the United States unlike anything we have ever seen before.

A full-blown war with Iran would be a fight to the death, and the Iranians would use everything in their arsenal to try to defeat us.  They would not abide by the rules of war, they wouldn’t hold anything back, and their goal would be to kill as many of us as possible.

We do not want that kind of war, and let us hope that it can still be prevented somehow.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Major Red Flags Are Causing Many To Doubt Whether Justice Will Be Done In The Jeffrey Epstein Sex Scandal

It won’t just be Jeffrey Epstein that will be on trial in the months ahead.  As this scandal unfolds, the entire U.S. legal system will be on trial, and if justice does not prevail many Americans will lose faith in the system for good.  And of course the rest of the world will be watching too, and so what are they supposed to think about us if we are not able to put Epstein and all of his dirty friends in prison?  As I detailed in part three of this series, the evidence against Jeffrey Epstein and his partners in crime is mounting.  If Jeffrey Epstein is put behind bars that will be a step in the right direction, but it will not nearly be enough.  At this point it is exceedingly clear to everyone in America that many of Epstein’s famous friends also regularly had sex with underage girls, and they must be held accountable.  In my most recent book I talked about how fundamentally broken our current legal system is, but if federal prosecutors are able to nail Epstein and all of his elite friends that were involved in these sex crimes, I might have to reconsider my position.

However, at this point I am not holding my breath.

Let me try to explain why.  As I have already discussed in this series, one of Epstein’s closest friends during the heyday of “the Lolita Express” was Bill Clinton.  And it turns out that the federal judge that will be presiding over Epstein’s case was appointed to his position by Clinton in 1998…

Richard Berman was appointed by Bill Clinton in 1998. He presided over Dinesh D’Souza’s case where D’Souza was convicted of re-imbursing friends to evade campaign contribution limits in a New York election.

Meanwhile, disgraced former FBI director James Comey’s daughter Maurene is one of the prosecutors in the case.

So will Berman recuse himself?

He should, but I doubt that it will actually happen.

Also, the fact that James Comey’s daughter is one of the prosecutors is a major red flag.  I have a gnawing suspicion that something is up, and hopefully I am wrong.

But on a positive note, it was encouraging to see prosecutors call for anyone that has “information about Epstein’s conduct to come forward”…

U.S. prosecutors on Monday encouraged anyone with information about Epstein’s conduct to come forward, not just potential victims. To the socialites, celebrities and politicians who attended lavish parties at Epstein’s homes in Manhattan or Palm Beach in the early 2000s or hitched rides on his private jet nicknamed the “Lolita Express” by the tabloids the request carried a clear message: Come talk to us before we seek you out.

And I was also greatly encouraged by the fact that the feds have already announced that more of Epstein’s accusers have already come forward since his arrest…

In the hours since Mr. Epstein’s arrest, prosecutors said, several other women contacted them with complaints about Mr. Epstein. Some of those accusers had never previously spoken to the government, prosecutors said.

Several of Mr. Epstein’s accusers said they were relieved that authorities seemed to be taking their complaints seriously after many years.

Nailing Epstein should be pretty easy, and things got even easier for prosecutors after a “treasure trove” of photographic evidence was found during a raid on Epstein’s New York home.

The tricky part will be nailing Epstein’s famous friends.  In the old days he regularly partied with some of the biggest names in America, and going after them will not be easy.

But it must be done, because the reputation of our entire nation is at stake.  If the rich and famous can sexually abuse underage girls for years and get away with it, how are any of us supposed to have faith in the system?

According to Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown, Epstein and his dirty friends liked to prey on young girls that were as vulnerable as possible…

In a November investigation led by Miami Herald reporter Julie Brown, about 80 victims were identified as having been abused by Epstein from 2001 to 2006. The Herald spoke with eight of the accusers. It found:

Most of the girls came from disadvantaged families, single-parent homes or foster care. Some had experienced troubles that belied their ages: They had parents and friends who committed suicide; mothers abused by husbands and boyfriends; fathers who molested and beat them. One girl had watched her stepfather strangle her 8-year-old stepbrother, according to court records obtained by the Herald. Many of the girls were one step away from homelessness.

Whoever was involved in sexually abusing these vulnerable young girls needs to go to prison.  And if it was up to me, their punishment would be a lot worse than that.

Many people out there seem to be convinced that there is no way that these sexual predators will get away this time.  Personally, I am not so sure.  They have the money to hire the best lawyers in the entire country, and we can already see evidence that an effort is being made to protect certain individuals.  For example, a Wikipedia entry for Jeffrey Epstein was suspiciously altered on Sunday…

The sentence, “Epstein flew Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey, and Chris Tucker to Africa in his private jet. Flight records show Bill Clinton flew on Epstein’s plane 26 times,” was removed Sunday.

The edit was made one day before Bill Clinton denied flying on the jet so often, and instead, said he only flew on it four times.

Meanwhile, a sentence mentioning the fact Epstein “attended parties” with Donald Trump was left unaltered.

We shall see how this drama plays out in the months ahead, but anything short of putting all these perverts in prison is going to be a defeat.

The sick and evil behavior of the elite is finally being revealed for all the world to see, and the things that we will learn as more evidence comes out will likely shock all of us.  As Michelle Goldberg has aptly noted, we are about to discover “how rotten our rulers really are”…

In a detention memo submitted on Monday, federal prosecutors outlined some of the evidence seized from a search of Epstein’s house on Saturday night. It included hundreds — possibly thousands — of sexually suggestive photographs of girls who appear underage, as well as hand-labeled compact discs with titles like “Girl pics nude,” and, with the names redacted, “Young [Name] + [Name].”

It seems, at first, astonishingly reckless for Epstein not just to allegedly keep such material, but to keep it in Manhattan, instead of, say, on his private Caribbean island. Maybe, however, it’s simply a sign of how protected he felt. “In my mind there has always been this huge question mark: What is Jeffrey Epstein’s leverage?” Ward said. If we find out, we’ll know just how rotten our rulers really are.

I would really like to believe that all of the bad guys are going to go to prison, but I have seen our legal system fail so many times before.

Perhaps that is the case that will finally turn things around.

Perhaps we will finally see some of the biggest names in America brought to justice.

The whole world is watching, and we cannot afford to get this one wrong.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

The Jeffrey Epstein Case Has The Potential To Be The Biggest Scandal In American History

We are about to open up a can of worms that could turn our entire country completely upside down by the time it is all said and done. Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein’s horrific crimes have been well known for a very long time, and I have been writing about them for many years. In fact, there were some people that really, really didn’t like it when I wrote about Bill Clinton’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein and “the Lolita Express” during the 2016 presidential election. Flight records show that Bill Clinton took 26 trips on board Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous private plane, and Clinton also spent an enormous amount of time on Epstein’s secluded private “sex island” where underage girls were routinely abused. Of course Jeffrey Epstein had lots of other very famous friends as well, and it has been documented that his “black book” was absolutely filled with marquee names from Hollywood, Wall Street and Washington. But despite everything that we knew about what was going on, for a very long time it looked like justice would never be served. Epstein got an absolutely ridiculous sweetheart deal from prosecutors in 2008, and none of his famous friends were ever charged with anything. They all probably thought that they had escaped the grasp of law enforcement forever, but this month everything has suddenly changed.

In recent days, authorities apprehended Epstein after his plane returned from an overseas trip, they raided his home, and they formally charged him with sex trafficking and conspiracy…

Fund manager Jeffrey Epstein used his wealth and power to sexually abuse dozens of young girls for years at one of the biggest mansions in Manhattan, paying them hundreds of dollars in cash for each encounter and hundreds more if they brought in more victims, U.S. prosecutors said.

Now, federal prosecutors are charging him with sex trafficking and conspiracy. They’re seeking to send him prison for years and seize that Manhattan home.

The indictment unsealed on Monday against the well-connected financier came days after his arrest upon returning from overseas and just hours after federal agents used a crowbar to enter the townhouse.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is prosecuting Epstein, and they don’t mess around. They win more than 90 percent of the cases that actually go to trial, and Epstein has good reason to be shaking in his boots at this point.

And it is also extremely interesting to note that James Comey’s daughter is one of the prosecutors on this case…

Maurene Comey, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, is reportedly a prosecutor in the new criminal case against convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. This details comes out of a new CNN report. The source is described as a person “with knowledge of the case.”

Will that turn out to be significant?

We shall see as this drama plays out.

In the legal community, everyone has an agenda, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York certainly has an agenda in this case.

But what is their goal?

Why have they decided to pursue this specific case at this specific time?

Perhaps the primary goal is to nail Epstein to the wall once and for all. If Epstein is convicted of all the charges against him, he will spend the rest of his life in prison. And if that is all there is to this story, it won’t be an enormous national scandal.

However, it could also be possible that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York wants to use Epstein to get to one or more of his famous friends, and that is where things could get very “interesting”.

And the fact that this case “is being overseen by the Public Corruption Unit of the SDNY” would seem to indicate that something is up…

Second, what should we make of reporting that Epstein’s prosecution is being overseen by the Public Corruption Unit of the SDNY? Short answer: It’s too soon to say. It could mean that a public official is being investigated or will be charged with Epstein. That could be a minor public figure or a major one. It could mean that SDNY is investigating misconduct in the plea that Epstein was given in 2008. Or it could mean none of those things.

After everything that Epstein went through in 2008, you would think that he would clean up his life and get rid of all the stuff that got him into so much trouble in the first place.

But when authorities raided his home, they discovered a “vast trove” of photographic evidence…

Prosecutors said a search of Epstein’s Manhattan mansion after his arrest turned up a ”vast trove” of nude photos of what appeared to be underage girls. Officials said in court papers that the pictures included some on CDs with handwritten labels, including “Misc nudes 1,” “Girl pics nude” and the names of specific young women.

It has also previously been reported that in the old days Epstein would actually record “the sordid orgies he threw for VIPs at his luxury homes using cameras hidden in the walls of guest bedrooms”, but it is not known if those recordings still exist or if authorities were able to find any such recordings when they raided Epstein’s home.

In any event, there is clearly an enormous amount of evidence against Epstein already, and that means his only hope of avoiding prison for the rest of his life is to cooperate with authorities.

And as former federal prosecutor Elie Honig has pointed out, Epstein’s former friends from Hollywood, Wall Street and Washington should be quite scared right now…

We do not know if Epstein will cooperate, but even if he does not, others will very likely be implicated. It seems clear from the indictment that others helped Epstein run his alleged sex trafficking operation and otherwise participated in it. At least some of those names will come out in court proceedings, public filings, potentially trial and perhaps additional indictments. And it’s worth noting that the Epstein case is being handled by the SDNY’s Public Corruption Unit — in my experience, human trafficking cases usually are handled elsewhere in the office — which strongly suggests that public officials could be under a microscope here. Anybody who helped Epstein in any way needs to get a lawyer and get scared.

Of course Epstein could choose to sacrifice himself and protect his friends by not talking, but that isn’t likely to happen. In fact, Jack Posobiec is reporting that Epstein’s lawyers have already made it clear to the SDNY that their client will cooperate as long as he can get a reduced sentence…

SCOOP: Epstein’s lawyer has already made a proffer to SDNY. Epstein will agree to cooperate with the investigation, including giving up the names of individuals that paid for activities with underage girls in exchange for a maximum sentence not to exceed 5 years

In addition to Epstein’s potential testimony, just a few days ago a judge ordered the unsealing of records in a related case that detail allegations of “sexual abuse” by “numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister and other world leaders”…

This news comes just days after a judge ordered the unsealing of nearly 2,000 pages of records related to a civil case that could reveal how he and his accused accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly trafficked underage girls

The documents that will be unsealed are from a defamation case that was settled after Epstein entered a guilty plea guilty to a single charge of soliciting and procuring a person under age 18 for prostitution.

Records in the defamation case contained descriptions of sexual abuse by Epstein along with new allegations of sexual abuse by ‘numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, a well-known prime minister and other world leaders.’

We will talk about who some of those individuals might be in the second part of this series which I will post later tonight on The Most Important News.

I have been writing about corruption in the political world for a long time, but this could be the scandal of all scandals.

So stay tuned, because I believe that things are about to get extremely interesting.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

The Large Earthquakes That We Just Witnessed Should Be Taken As A Warning By Everyone Still Living In California

For years, scientists have been warning us that the San Andreas fault is “locked and loaded” and could potentially “unzip all at once”.  Of course the two large earthquakes that we just witnessed in southern California were not along the San Andreas fault, and we should be extremely thankful for that.  Because they happened in remote areas, those two quakes didn’t cause an enormous amount of damage, but they should still be taken as a warning.  The magnitude 7.1 earthquake that rattled southern California on Friday night was felt in San Francisco, Las Vegas and northern Mexico simultaneously, but if a magnitude 9.0 earthquake suddenly hit the San Andreas fault it would be 707 times more powerful than the quake that we just witnessed, and it would happen in a very heavily populated area.  Needless to say, the death and destruction would be unimaginable, and scientists keep telling us that southern California is way overdue for “the Big One” to strike.

So if you live in California right now, you have a decision to make.

Right now the crust of our planet is becoming exceedingly unstable, and the infamous Ring of Fire runs directly along the west coast of the United States.

Do you really want to keep pressing your luck?  Yes, things had been rather quiet for the last couple of decades, but now California is starting to shake like a leaf.  According to the Los Angeles Times, there have been at least 3,000 earthquakes in southern California since the 4th of July…

Since the Fourth, Caltech seismologists have detected at least 3,000 smaller earthquakes.

Those include 340 earthquakes with a magnitude greater than 3, 52 with a magnitude greater than 4, and six with a magnitude greater than 5, Hauksson said Saturday.

In total, this earthquake sequence is expected to generate about 34,000 aftershocks with a magnitude 1 or greater over the next six months, he said.

These days Caltech seismologist Lucy Jones has become “the go to expert” that everyone in the mainstream media wants to talk to about California earthquakes, and according to her there is a “nearly 11%” chance that southern California will get hit by another magnitude 7 or greater earthquake this week…

The odds that Southern California will experience another earthquake of magnitude 7 or greater in the next week are now nearly 11%, according to preliminary estimates from seismologists.

And the chances that a quake will surpass the 7.1 temblor that struck near Ridgecrest on Friday night are roughly 8% to 9%, said Caltech seismologist Lucy Jones.

Of course Jones previously told us that there was only a very small chance that the magnitude 6.4 Ridgecrest earthquake was a foreshock for a larger event, and yet that is precisely what happened.

Ultimately, just like everyone else, Jones is essentially giving us her best guess.  It may be an educated guess, but it is still a guess.

And she is also telling us that the aftershocks from the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that we just witnessed could “last for years”…

Though such quakes would be more likely to occur in the next few days, the shaking could continue for quite some time.

“A magnitude 7 usually has aftershocks that last for years,” Jones said.

But aftershocks are not a reason to move out of the state of California.

Very small earthquakes are not going to change history, but when “the Big One” finally arrives, nothing will ever be the same again.

Earlier today, I came across a CNN headline which boldly declared that they had “debunked” the “myth” that a portion of southern California could one day go into the ocean.

Since I had just written about this, I eagerly clicked on the story to see the amazing “evidence” that they were using to “debunk” this “myth”.  Unsurprisingly, this was the extent of the “evidence” that they offered…

Here’s some comforting words for every California resident contemplating a permanent relocation.

The USGS calls the the idea that the state will be swept out to sea “absolutely impossible.”

What will continue to happen however, is the slow — about two-inches-per-year slow — northward movement of southwestern California toward Alaska, as it slides past central and eastern California.

Wow, that is quite a powerful argument they laid out there.

I assume that what is being referred to here is the idea that a portion of California could snap off the continent like a cookie and sink into the ocean, and of course that isn’t going to happen.

However, much of southern California is barely above sea level, and scientists have discovered that past earthquakes have caused the ground in the region to sink by as much as three feet.  If such an earthquake happened today, vast stretches of southern California could suddenly go underwater as the Pacific Ocean came pouring in.

So instead of talking about southern California “going into the ocean”, perhaps it would be more accurate for us to talk about “the Pacific Ocean going into southern California”.

Cal State Fullerton professor Matt Kirby was one of the lead researchers on the groundbreaking study that alerted all of us to this possibility, and he says that if a large enough earthquake happened today “you would see seawater rushing in”…

‘It´s something that would happen relatively instantaneously,’ Kirby said.

‘Probably today if it happened, you would see seawater rushing in.’

Southern California is essentially a time bomb, and it is absolutely riddled with fault lines.  In fact, a Fox News article says that there are more than five hundred active fault lines in the region right now…

Like a major river, the San Andreas has many tributaries – faults big and small that fan out and fracture the state from top to bottom. As a result, most Californians live within thirty miles of an active fault line, of which there are more than five hundred.

So do you feel lucky?

Maybe you do, and that is fine.

But someday your luck will run out.

We have entered the time of “the perfect storm”, and major seismic events are going to become increasingly common.  As sure as you are reading this article, someday the kind of earthquake that I am talking about will come to California, and the death toll will be off the charts.

Unfortunately, most Californians are not going to listen to the warnings.  For example, one small business owner named Albert Adi told CNN that the risk of earthquakes is something he is willing to tolerate in order to live in a place “with beautiful weather and good job opportunities”…

Ultimately, he said, it’s just one of the tradeoffs of living in a place with beautiful weather and good job opportunities.

“It’s the risk you have to accept by living here in Southern California,” he said.

“Hopefully,” he added, “everything will work out.”

Blind hope is not a strategy.

Today, California is on the cutting edge of everything that is wrong with America.  The state is at the forefront of our moral, social and political decay, and the filth being produced by our entertainment industry has infected the entire globe.

Unless you have an overwhelming reason to stay, I don’t know why anyone would possibly want to live on the west coast at this point.

A day of reckoning for the state of California is approaching very rapidly, and you don’t want to be there when that day finally arrives.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Was The Magnitude 6.4 Quake ‘The Big One’? No, Scientists Assure Us A Much Larger California Earthquake Is Coming

We just witnessed the largest earthquake to hit the state of California in many years, and it definitely shook a lot of people up, but the truth is that it is not even worth comparing to “the Big One” that scientists assure us is coming someday.  On Thursday morning, a magnitude 6.4 earthquake rocked portions of southern California and southern Nevada.  The quake was so powerful that it was felt by people living in both Los Angeles and Las Vegas.  It created giant cracks in major highways, it caused countless fires, and it was even picked up by a seismograph in Pennsylvania.  We are talking about a major seismic event, and over the last 24 hours there have been an astounding 1,217 aftershocks.  But as bad as this earthquake was, “the Big One” will be at least 100 times more powerful than what we just witnessed.

Hopefully we won’t see “the Big One” for quite a while, but right now we are being told that there is a strong possibility that we could see more large aftershocks as the rumbling in southern California continues…

California could be hit by another, even more powerful earthquake within days after southern California was rocked by its worst tremor in 20 years on Thursday, experts believe.

Geologists say yesterday’s 6.4-magnitude quake is likely to produce a forceful 5.5-strength aftershock and a series of smaller tremors – and could even prompt a larger one.

And we did actually see a magnitude 5.4 quake among the hundreds of aftershocks that have been relentlessly pounding the Ridgecrest area, but hopefully all of this shaking will start to subside very soon.

Unfortunately, scientists are telling us that the Ridgecrest quake didn’t “relieve pressure” or make “the Big One” any less likely.  In fact, they continue to insist that we are way overdue for “the Big One” and that it is likely to be “125 times stronger” than the earthquake that we just witnessed…

Seismologists say the “Big One” would be 125 times stronger than Thursday’s earthquake and 44 times stronger than the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which killed 57 people and caused $49 billion in economic losses.

Of course that figure is just an estimate and it is based on a hypothetical magnitude 7.8 earthquake.

Theoretically, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake would release 7,943 times as much energy as the Ridgecraft earthquake, and that would easily be the most destructive natural disaster that we have ever seen in all of U.S. history up to this point.

And please don’t think that such a quake can’t happen.  Scientists admit that the San Andreas fault has the potential to “move for many feet almost instantaneously”…

The San Andreas is particularly feared because, in some sections, it will move for many feet almost instantaneously. A famous example was during the great 1906 magnitude 7.8 earthquake that destroyed San Francisco; at Point Reyes in Marin County, a fence that intersected the fault was suddenly cut in two, separated on each side by the San Andreas by 18 feet.

A similar sized earthquake of the San Andreas fault rupturing through the Palm Springs area would shatter the ground. If a couple had the misfortune of holding hands across the fault in a remote part of the desert near Desert Hot Springs when the Big One hits, they’d suddenly be separated by as much as 30 feet — almost the entire length of a city bus, USGS research geophysicist Kate Scharer said in 2017.

Someday it will happen, and it will be worse than anything that Hollywood has ever dreamed up.

A few years ago, a team of scientists discovered that previous earthquakes in the distant past caused the ground in southern California to sink by up to three feet in just a matter of moments. Their research led them to the conclusion that if a similar earthquake happened today, large portions of southern California would go into the Pacific Ocean “almost instantly”…

The Big One may be overdue to hit California, but scientists near LA have found a new risk for the area during a major earthquake.

They claim that if a major tremor hits the area, it could plunge large parts of California into the sea almost instantly.

The discovery was made after studying the Newport-Inglewood fault, which has long been believed to be one of Southern California’s danger zones.

Cal State Fullerton professor Matt Kirby was one of the scientists that worked on that study, and he insists that if such a quake happened right now there wouldn’t be any time to evacuate…

‘It´s something that would happen relatively instantaneously,’ Kirby said.

‘Probably today if it happened, you would see seawater rushing in.’

It is just a matter of time before such an event takes place, and hopefully it won’t happen too soon, but without a doubt our planet is becoming increasingly unstable and now is not a good time to be living in California.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the ability to forecast earthquakes like we can forecast the weather.  But scientists all over the globe are in agreement that southern California is way overdue for “the Big One”.  For example, I would like you to carefully consider the words of paleoseismologist Chris Goldfinger…

“Most earthquake geologists rarely use that language about ‘being overdue,’ but we all agree,” Chris Goldfinger, a paleoseismologist at Oregon State University, previously told Business Insider.

But making forecasts about California’s mess of faults is challenging, Goldfinger added.

“It’s like a game of Russian roulette, except the gun has 100 chambers rather than six, and several dozen guns instead of just one,” he said.

If you play Russian roulette enough times, eventually you will lose.

I don’t know anyone that has written about the coming great earthquake in California more frequently than I have, and it is absolutely critical that people understand that this is not a theoretical discussion.  Scientists assure us that it is going to happen, and the only thing that is uncertain is the exact timing.

Hopefully the magnitude 6.4 earthquake that just hit Ridgecrest will wake some more people up, but of course most Californians will quickly forget it.

Unfortunately for them, the clock is ticking and one day disaster will strike without warning.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Insect Species Are Rapidly Going Extinct Across The Globe – All Insects Could Be Gone “In 100 Years”

Even though most people don’t seem to realize it yet, we are in the midst of a major extinction level event.  And even though it is happening in slow motion, given enough time we would see most life on this planet completely wiped out.  Insects are absolutely critical to the global food chain, and right now we are literally on the brink of an ecological Armageddon.  All over the world insect populations have been declining precipitously in recent years, and this has already been causing a chain reaction among birds, reptiles and others that eat insects.  Species after species is going extinct, and as you will see below, one environmental scientist is now warning that at our current pace all insects could be completely gone “in 100 years”.

This is a true environmental crisis, and yet it is getting relatively little attention from those that call themselves “environmentalists”.  But hopefully people will start to wake up, because this is extremely serious.

Over in Germany, the Amateur Entomology Society of Krefeld is telling us that the population of flying insects in their area has plunged by 76 percent over the last 37 years…

This warning comes from German entomology enthusiasts, or bug catchers, who have collected 80 million insects in the Rhine countryside over the last 37 years.

Their collection is now a world-class scientific treasure and also evidence of what is described as one of Earth’s worst extinction phases since the dinosaurs vanished.

The total annual biomass of flying insects collected has plummeted by 76 percent since the insect-lovers began their meticulous studies.

According to the president of the society, Martin Sorg, they have been using the exact same traps and have been collecting insects in the exact same locations for the past 37 years.  So there have been no changes on their end that would explain the dramatic change in the numbers…

“Since 1982, the traps we manufacture ourselves have been standardised and controlled, all of the same size and the same material, and they are collected at the same rate in 63 locations that are still identical,” explains Sorg.

The result is a treasure trove of quantitative data that dwarfs that of any funded university project, he says.

Interestingly, Sorg says that the decline in the insect population has been getting much worse since about 2011…

To demonstrate the rapid decline, a lab technician holds up two bottles: one from 1994 contains 1,400 grammes of trapped insects, the newest one just 300 grammes.

“We only became aware of the seriousness of this decline in 2011, and every year since then we have seen it get worse,” says Sorg, the man who sounded the alarm.

The iPhone was invented in 2007, and the global use of cell phones has absolutely exploded over the past decade.  Many believe that there could be a direct link between the disappearance of the insects and our use of cell phone technology, because without a doubt all of the electromagnetic pollution that we are producing is not good for the bugs.

Others point out that pesticide use around the world is far greater than it has ever been in all of human history, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for insects to find habitats that are not affected in some way.  We are dumping massive amounts of this poison wherever food is grown, and many of us use it very heavily on our lawns and gardens as well.

If we do not do something, species after species is going to continue to go extinct.  Earlier this year, a “synthesis of 73 studies” that was published by Australian researchers Francisco Sanchez-Bayo and Kris Wyckhuys came to the conclusion that we are facing “the most massive extinction episode” in the history of our civilization…

In February, they published the first synthesis of 73 studies on entomological fauna around the world over the past 40 years, listing places from Costa Rica to southern France.

They calculated that over 40 percent of are threatened with extinction, and each year about one percent is added to the list.

This is equivalent, they noted, to “the most massive extinction episode” since the dinosaurs disappeared.

At this point, we are losing approximately 2.5 percent of all insects each year.

That may not sound like a lot to you, but over a number of decades it is absolutely catastrophic.

In fact, according to Sánchez-Bayo, it is likely that we only have about 100 years before all the insects are gone…

Chillingly, the total mass of insects is falling by 2.5 percent annually, the review’s authors said. If the decline continues at this rate, insects could be wiped off the face of the Earth within a century.

“It is very rapid. In 10 years you will have a quarter less, in 50 years only half left and in 100 years you will have none,” study co-author Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, an environmental biologist at the University of Sydney, Australia, told The Guardian.

And for some critical insect populations, the end may come a whole lot sooner than that.

As I noted yesterday, an astounding 37 percent of all honeybee colonies in the United States died off last winter.

So what you are going to do when they are gone?  Are you going to go out and start pollinating our crops by hand?

In addition, the loss of insects is absolutely disastrous for all of the animals that eat them.  According to Sánchez-Bayo, we could see billions of birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish starve to death…

One of the biggest impacts of insect loss is on the many birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish that eat insects. “If this food source is taken away, all these animals starve to death,” he said. Such cascading effects have already been seen in Puerto Rico, where a recent study revealed a 98% fall in ground insects over 35 years.

Are you starting to get the picture?

Unless something truly miraculous happens, our planet is doomed, and the clock is ticking.

A lot of people out there keep waiting for a “collapse” to happen, but the truth is that “collapse” is already happening all around us.

If we stay on the path that we are currently on, there is no future for our civilization.

Unfortunately, right now most people are simply not listening to those of us that are trying to sound the alarm.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

Look At This Map – It Shows Devastating Crop Losses Are Literally Happening All Over The Globe


Let me warn you right up front – the information in this article might freak you out.  If what some experts are telling us is true, a global food crisis appears to be inevitable.  Even during good years we have a really difficult time feeding everyone on the planet, and now a major climate shift appears to be happening.  Our sun has become exceedingly quiet, and many experts believe that this is a sign that a solar minimum is now upon us.  Of course we have seen solar minimums happen quite regularly in the past, and if this is just a normal solar minimum then conditions should begin to return to normal after a couple of years.  Unfortunately, evidence continues to mount that we have entered what is known as a “grand solar minimum”.  In fact, Professor Valentina Zharkova says that what we are facing is a “super grand solar minimum”, and if that is true we are going to be facing climate chaos like we have never seen before.  During previous “grand solar minimums” the globe was gripped by devastating famines and vast numbers of people died.  Could a similar scenario potentially be in our future?

Ice Age Farmer has compiled a “Grand Solar Minimum Crop Loss Map” which you can view right here, and I appreciate our friends at ANP for pointing it out to us.  Ice Age Farmer’s map shows that there are literally dozens of locations all over the globe right now that are reporting significant crop losses, and this is really unlike anything we have ever seen before.  Some parts of our planet are dealing with horrific drought, but in the middle of the United States it just won’t stop raining.  In some areas of the world it is too cold, while others are experiencing record heat.  Everywhere we look we see extremes, and the behavior of our sun is the primary reason this is happening.

Last November I warned that we could be facing one of the coldest winters in modern times, and that is precisely what happened.  Back then top scientists were warning us that a solar minimum had arrived, and since that time the behavior of the sun has continued to confirm that hypothesis…

The surface of the sun is normally a roiling, super-heated hellscape.

But Nasa images have revealed that the face of our star is looking ominously calm right now, prompting claims it’s reached a stage of its cycle called the solar minimum.

During the minimum, there are significantly fewer sunspots and its magnetic field weakens, allowing cosmic rays from outside our solar system to rain down on Earth.

This solar minimum came early, and that is exactly what we would expect if we were entering a “grand solar minimum”.  Perhaps the best known “grand solar minimum” in our history was the Maunder Minimum which stretched from 1645 to 1715…

The last time a deep solar minimum was in effect was the Maunder minimum, which saw seven decades of freezing weather, began in 1645 and lasted through to 1715, and happened when sunspots were exceedingly rare.

During this period, temperatures dropped globally by 1.3 degrees celsius leading to shorter seasons and ultimately food shortages.

The food shortages during the Maunder Minimum were quite severe, and the global death toll was enormous.

Could we be facing a similar scenario this time around?

Actually, economist Martin Armstrong seems to believe that it could be even worse…

The Maunder Minimum created such a deep cold in Europe and extreme weather events elsewhere that what unfolds is a series of droughts, floods, and harvest failures. Historically, this leads to massive migrations, wars and revolutions. The fatal synergy between human and natural disasters eradicated perhaps one-third of the human population during the last event and this time we are crashing more rapidly than before. Therefore, we may exceed more than a reduction in population of one-third and reach the levels of the 14th century of 50%, which was also combined with the Black Plague.

Without a doubt, our planet is behaving very strangely right now, and reports of crop failures are regularly coming in from all over the planet.

Just check out these examples…

That layer of stress on the agricultural industry is only intensified when you zoom out to the international level, where farmers around the world are facing various dire situations. As one North Dakota farmer and Twitter user Jordan Gackle pointed out in a recent thread: Drought is continuing to disrupt wheat crops in Australia forcing the country to import some of its wheat from Canada. Some farmers in Canada are now reporting long stretches without rain under the hashtag #drought19. Head over to China and you’ll find that a legion of fall armyworms are spreading rapidly and devouring key grain crops.

It is becoming quite clear that food prices are going to rise substantially and that the world is going to produce a lot less food than it normally does this year.

And as I noted earlier, we have a tough time feeding everyone on the planet even during ideal conditions.  Sadly, this even includes the United States…

In fact, it’s not just older Americans who are already suffering from hunger and malnourishment, with this 2017 story over at Feeding America reporting that more than 41 million Americans were suffering from hunger daily, including more than 13 million children, with this National Geographic story reporting that 1 out of every 6 Americans aren’t getting enough to eat.

So what will things look like if global food production drops 10 percent, 20 percent or even more?

We have never had to deal with anything like this in modern times, and meanwhile the population of the planet has grown from 1.6 billion in 1900 to 7.5 billion today.

We have entered the time of “the perfect storm”, and we are going to start to witness things happen that many people would consider to be unimaginable.

I truly hope that things will not be as bad as some of the experts are suggesting.  But as far as crop failures are concerned, we don’t have to speculate.  They are happening right now all over the planet, and that means that global food supplies are going to get tighter and tighter in the months ahead.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

The 10 Most Memorable Quotes From Thursday Night’s Bizarre Democratic Presidential Debate

Unlike Wednesday night, the mud was definitely flying when 10 more Democratic presidential candidates took the stage for a nationally televised debate on Thursday night.  The most frequent target was former Vice President Joe Biden, and it is going to be very interesting to see how he bounces back from this.  Senator Kamala Harris attempted to portray Biden as someone that is racially insensitive, and she delivered the remarks that her team had obviously prepared well in advance with brutal efficiency.  But the more the Democrats fight with one another, the better it is going to be for President Trump.  And without a doubt, President Trump has got to be encouraged by the incredibly weak lineup of candidates that he saw on Thursday night.  The truth is that most of them are more qualified for prison than they are for the White House.  The Democrats desperately need to find a champion that can inspire the kind of passion on the left that Barack Obama once did, but right now they don’t have one.  They may have more than 20 candidates, but all of them are seriously flawed in one way or another.

Of course with so many candidates in the race, at least the debates should be entertaining.  The following are the 10 most memorable quotes from Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate…

Senator Kamala Harris to Joe Biden: “And I’m going to now direct this at Vice President Biden. I do not believe you are a racist. And I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground, but I also believe — and it is personal, and it was actually very hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputation and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing. And you know, there was a little girl in California who was a part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. And that little girl was me.”

Marianne Williamson: “I’ll tell you one thing: it’s really nice that we’ve got all these plans, but if you think we’re gonna beat Donald Trump by just having all these plans, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper: “If we don’t clearly define we are not socialists, the Republicans are going to come at us every way they can and call us socialists.”

Rep. Eric Swalwell: “I was 6-years-old when a presidential candidate came to the California Democratic Convention and said it’s time to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans,” Swalwell said. “That candidate was then-Sen. Joe Biden.”

Senator Kamala Harris: “America does not want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we’re going to put food on their table.”

Mayor Pete Buttigieg: “Our party doesn’t talk about that as much, largely for very good reasons, we are committed to the separation of church and state … But we should call out hypocrisy when we see it. And for a party that associates itself with Christianity, to say that it’s OK that God would smile at the division of families at the hands of federal agents? That God would condone putting children in cages? (It) has lost all claim to ever use religious language again.”

Marianne Williamson: “What Donald Trump has done to these children … is kidnapping, and it is important for us to realize that,” she said. “If you forcibly take a child from their parents’ arms, you are kidnapping them. And if you take a lot of children and you put them in a containment center, thus inflicting chronic trauma upon them, that’s called child abuse. This is collective child abuse. And when this is crime, both of those things are a crime, and if your government does it, that doesn’t make it less of a crime. This is state-sponsored crime.”

Sen. Michael Bennet: “The president has been right to push back on China, but has done it in completely the wrong way. We should mobilize the entire rest of the world who all have a shared interest in pushing back on China’s mercantilist trade policies and I think we can do that.”

Bernie Sanders about his health care plan: “Yes, they will pay more in taxes, but they will pay less for health care than what they get now.”

Marianne Williamson: “Mr. President, if you’re listening, I want you to hear me, please. You have harnessed fear for political purposes and only love can cast that out.”

But perhaps the most memorable moment from the entire debate didn’t involve any talking at all.

At one point the candidates were asked to “raise your hand if your government plan would provide coverage for undocumented immigrants”, and every single one of them raised a hand.

What in the world is happening to this country?  Virtually all of our politicians want to keep taking us in the exact opposite direction from where we should be headed, and if we don’t change course there isn’t going to be any hope for America.

Before I end this article, I want to mention one more thing.

No matter how horrible some of the candidates on the stage were, at least they should have all been treated fairly.

Instead, Joe Biden was given four times as much talking time as Andrew Yang.

And 27 full minutes went by before Marianne Williamson was even given an opportunity to speak.

In election cycle after election cycle, the mainstream media always finds a way to make sure that their favored candidates are given an edge in these debates, and it is sickening.

Of course our entire political system is quite sickening at this point, and that is not likely to change any time soon.

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.

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