Money

Due To The Weather, Midwest Farmers Fear Widespread Crop Failures And A “Record-Low” Harvest In 2019

Snow usually blankets the Upper Midwest around the first week of November, and so that means that many farmers in the Midwest only have about two weeks to salvage what they can before everything is lost.  The unprecedented October blizzard that we just witnessed dumped massive amounts of snow on millions upon millions of acres of crops from Colorado to Minnesota.  Even if the weather is absolutely perfect between now and November 1st, farmers are still “expecting massive crop losses”. In fact, one South Dakota lawmaker told the press that the crop losses will be “as devastating as we’ve ever seen”.  And as you will see below, even parts of the Midwest that didn’t get hammered by the recent blizzard are potentially facing “record-low” harvests this year.  We have never seen a year this bad for Midwest farmers in modern American history, but if the weather does not cooperate things could rapidly get much, much worse over the next two weeks.

Because of all the rain and flooding earlier in the year, many Midwest farmers faced serious delays in getting their crops planted, and so they were counting on good weather at the end of the season so that their crops could fully mature.  Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and the recent Midwest blizzard was definitely a nightmare scenario…

Wall Street Journal writers Jacob Bunge and Kirk Maltais reported on Monday that, “Farmers who delayed planting in waterlogged fields this spring face a new threat as they race to harvest their crops: snow.

“Heavy snowfall and high winds over the past several days buffeted northern Farm Belt states where many farmers faced historic planting delays last spring. The early blizzard bookended a trying year for U.S. farmers. Crop prices generally remain under pressure because of high supplies and slackened demand as a result of the U.S.-China trade war. And many crops now threatened by a freeze are immature because they were planted so late.”

When the snow began blanketing the Dakotas, most of the corn was not even mature yet.  The following numbers originally come from the Wall Street Journal…

The Journal writers explained that, “The cold weather is a big threat to vulnerable crops. Only 22% of corn in North Dakota was mature as of Oct. 7, and 36% in South Dakota. In the 18 biggest corn-producing states, 58% of this year’s crop was mature, versus an average of 85% by that date over the previous five years, according to the USDA.

Right now, there are millions upon millions of acres of crops that farmers cannot even get to because of all the snow.

If we do not get some warm weather over the next two weeks, they may not be able to salvage much at all, because winter weather season is rapidly approaching…

In normal years, winter weather hits much of the Upper Midwest portion of the Great Plains around the beginning of November, Isane said. After that, it is too late to bring in most crops.

That means, farmers have about two weeks to carry out their harvest — or lose it.

Essentially, we are potentially facing a crisis unlike anything we have ever seen before.

The next two weeks will determine whether many Midwest farmers make a paycheck for the year or not, and so at this point “the stress level is off the charts for these guys”…

“Nobody really knows what will happen because we don’t know what the weather will be,” said Luther Markwart, the executive vice president of the American Sugarbeet Growers Association. Most of the sugarbeets in the country are grown in the Great Plains area that was hit by last week’s blizzard.

“So, the stress level is off the charts for these guys,” Markwart said. “Just think if your entire year’s paycheck was made in the next two weeks — or not.”

The Wall Street Journal and a few other mainstream news outlets are reporting on this, but most mainstream news sources are so obsessed with reporting on President Trump 24 hours a day that they are completely missing this story so far.

And even without the recent blizzard we were still facing very serious crop failures across the Midwest.  Most parts of Michigan didn’t really get hammered by the recent blizzard, but it is being reported that farmers in Michigan “could see record-lows in their crops in 2019″…

Michigan farmers could see record-lows in their crops in 2019, according to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture October Crop Production Report.

According to the USDA’s National Ag Statistics Service (NASS), Michigan farmers will be bracing for a rough harvest due to extremely variable crop conditions, wide-ranging stages of crop maturity and muddy fields.

A lot of people don’t seem to understand that if farmers don’t grow our food, we don’t get to eat.

So is anyone out there willing to dramatically reduce the amount of food that they will eat in 2020 so that everyone else will have enough?

Because what we are facing is not pretty.  According to the report that I just quoted, soybean production in Michigan this year will be down 31 percent…

The soybean production in Michigan was projected at 75.7 million bushels, a 31% decrease from last year and the lowest since 2008.

And actually the numbers in the Dakotas will be far, far worse than that if farmers are not able to get out into their fields over the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, the African Swine Fever crisis over in China continues to escalate.  The following very alarming information comes to us from Zero Hedge…

In a report on Monday, we detailed how pork spot prices have soared across China as the African Swine Fever has killed 50% of the country’s hog population. The price increase (as ‘pig ebola’ spreads) has already pushed up consumer inflation to a six-year high. Now analysts are telling Reuters on Tuesday that pork prices are expected to move significantly higher through year-end.

New data published Monday from the Ministry of Agriculture of the People’s Republic of China showed the pig-apocalypse continues to get worse.

Retail pork prices in the country have jumped 84% from last year to $2.78 a pound.

Needless to say, this crisis is pushing up pork prices all over the globe, and what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning.

We are entering a season of time that will be unlike anything we have ever seen before (#ad).  Here in the United States, it has always been safe to assume that our supermarkets will always be teeming with plenty of inexpensive food, but now a major shift is happening.

Everyone acknowledges that food prices are going to go up.  The real debate is about how high they will ultimately go.

The next two weeks are absolutely critical.  It is “make or break time” for many Midwest farmers, and they are itching to get out into their fields.

So let us hope that the weather cooperates, because we essentially need a miracle at this point.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep.  I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters.  (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing those books you help to support my work.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles in written form on their own websites as long as this “About the Author” section is included.  In order to comply with government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished.  This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate.  You can follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of this website.

 

National Geographic Admits Billions Of People Will “Face Shortages Of Food And Clean Water” Over The Next 30 Years

A lot of people out there don’t like when I write these kinds of articles, because they directly contradict the false narrative that humanity has an extremely bright future ahead.  Sadly, the truth is that our planet and everything that lives on it is rapidly deteriorating.  And I am not talking about the false environmentalism being pushed by the mainstream media, Greta Thunberg and countless well-funded NGOs.  What I am talking about is the stuff that is happening right in our face.  We are systematically poisoning our planet, thousands upon thousands of species are going extinct, and we are literally running out of all of our most important natural resources.  There isn’t going to be enough of anything in the not too distant future.  In fact, even National Geographic is admitting that up to five billion people could soon be facing “shortages of food and clean water”…

As many as five billion people, particularly in Africa and South Asia, are likely to face shortages of food and clean water in the coming decades as nature declines. Hundreds of millions more could be vulnerable to increased risks of severe coastal storms, according to the first-ever model examining how nature and humans can survive together.

“I hope no one is shocked that billions of people could be impacted by 2050,” says Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer a landscape ecologist at Stanford University. “We know we are dependent on nature for many things,” says Chaplin-Kramer, lead author of the paper “Global Modeling Of Nature’s Contributions To People” published in Science.

The clock is literally ticking for humanity, but meanwhile we spend immense amounts of energy on relatively meaningless political squabbles.

Look, the reality of the matter is that this is going to happen no matter which political party is in control of the White House.  We are in very big trouble, and nobody really has any idea how we can possibly turn things around.

At this point, we are running out of topsoil at a staggering rate.  In fact, we have already lost “nearly half of the most productive soil” within the last 150 years…

The world grows 95% of its food in the uppermost layer of soil, making topsoil one of the most important components of our food system. But thanks to conventional farming practices, nearly half of the most productive soil has disappeared in the world in the last 150 years, threatening crop yields and contributing to nutrient pollution, dead zones and erosion. In the US alone, soil on cropland is eroding 10 times faster than it can be replenished.

If we continue to degrade the soil at the rate we are now, the world could run out of topsoil in about 60 years, according to Maria-Helena Semedo of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

So do any of you have a viable plan for how we can stop losing our topsoil?

Because if nobody has a plan, mass starvation is an absolute certainty.  Even if we found a way to save our topsoil, we aren’t going to have anyone to pollinate our crops because all of the insects are dying.  I covered this phenomenon in a previous article entitled “Insect Species Are Rapidly Going Extinct Across The Globe – All Insects Could Be Gone ‘In 100 Years'”.

And without enough insects to eat, the bird population is rapidly declining as well.  This is something that I wrote about in a previous article entitled “North America’s Bird Population Is Collapsing – Nearly 3 Billion Birds Have Been Wiped Out Since 1970”.

Despite all of our advanced technology, we can’t seem to do much of anything to stop the death and decay that we see all over the globe.

Even the human race is steadily deteriorating.  Scientists tell us that humans are now smaller, shorter, weaker and dumber than our ancestors were thousands of years ago.  Today, our genes contain tens of thousands of mistakes (mutations), and those mistakes are passed on to the next generation.  And each new generation adds additional mistakes (mutations) to the gene pool, and so over time the number of mutations being passed on continues to grow.  In virtually every case those mutations are harmful, and we have absolutely no way to stop this systematic decay of the human genome.

Literally, our planet and everything in it is falling apart.

Here in the western world, things may seem okay for the moment because our debt-fueled lifestyles and our advanced technology allow us to live fairly comfortable lives.

But things are already starting to change, and global events are accelerating at a pace that is very alarming.  As the fabric of our society unravels (#ad), it is going to be imperative to have others that you can lean on for support.

Unfortunately, making friends is not something that most of us are very good at doing.  In fact, one recent study discovered that the average American adult “hasn’t made a new friend in the last five years”…

Spending time in the company of good friends regularly has been shown to have a positive impact on health. But for many Americans, socializing in adulthood gets harder with age. A recent survey reveals that 45% of adults admit they find it hard to make new friends. In fact, the average adult hasn’t made a new friend in the last five years, according to the survey.

In this day and age, our screens have become our friends.  We spend countless hours with our televisions, our phones and our computers.  Meanwhile, many of us don’t have any idea how the people living right next door are doing.

One of the reasons why I write so many articles is because that is how I can reach the most people.

If the most effective way of waking people up was traveling the country and holding meetings, I would do it.

But these days it is exceedingly difficult to get people to leave their homes and go to a meeting.  But once I publish this article on the Internet, it will be seen by enough people to easily fill a sports stadium.

The Internet is where the battle for hearts and minds is being won or lost, and we need to do all that we can to wake more people up.

Because the clock is ticking for humanity, and the destiny of billions hangs in the balance.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep.  I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters.  (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing those books you help to support my work.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles in written form on their own websites as long as this “About the Author” section is included.  In order to comply with government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished.  This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate.  You can follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of this website.

 

An “All-Out Blizzard” That Is “Unheard Of For October” Is About To Hit Farms In The Midwest With Up To 2 Feet Of Snow

Farmers in the middle of the country are about to get hit by what could potentially be the worst October blizzard in U.S. history.  According to USA Today, “the massive size and intensity of this snowstorm is unheard of for October”.  In other words, we have never seen anything like this in the month of October ever before.  Such a storm would have been disastrous enough in a normal year, but this has definitely not been a normal year for Midwest farmers.  As I detailed extensively in previous articles, endless rain and horrific flooding made planting season a complete and utter nightmare for many Midwest farmers this year.  Millions of acres did not get planted at all, and planting was seriously delayed on tens of millions of other acres.  As a result, corn, soybeans and other crops are simply not ready to be harvested in many parts of the Midwest, and now an unprecedented winter storm is barreling directly toward our heartland.

This is a very, very serious situation.  Normally, most corn in the Dakotas and Minnesota is considered to be “mature” by now, but this year we are facing a completely different scenario.

According to the latest USDA Crop Progress Report, only 22 percent of the corn in North Dakota is considered to be “mature” at this point…

Many farmers continue to wait on the sidelines to get into the fields. With freezing temperatures, heavy snowfall, and high winds set to hit the northern Plains this week, the corn in North Dakota is only 22% mature vs. a 75% five-year average, according to Monday’s USDA Crop Progress Report.

Also, South Dakota corn is rated 36% mature vs. an 80% five-year average. Minnesota farmers have a corn crop that is just 39% mature vs. an 83% five-year average.

And now here comes an “all-out blizzard”.

In case you are wondering, I am not the one that put such an extreme label on this storm.  In fact, Accuweather is specifically using that term to describe this historic storm…

An unusually far-reaching snowstorm for early October will stall, strengthen and evolve into an “all-out blizzard” over the Dakotas and then will send a blast of cold air across much of the Plains and Midwest.

Heavy snow has already fallen on the northern Rockies and was progressing southeastward along with a charge of cold air. Snow and slippery travel were also being reported in parts of Washington state, including around Spokane where new daily snowfall record for Oct. 8 was set. Spokane International Airport recorded 3.3 inches of snow Tuesday, shattering the previous record for the day, which was a trace set in 1981.

It is crazy that Spokane is already getting snow.

According to Yahoo News, that snowfall already makes this the “third-snowiest October” that the city has ever experienced…

Spokane, Washington, was one town that was hit particularly hard by the snow on Tuesday. A record-breaking 3.3 inches of snow fell, the first measurable snow in the month of October since 2001. It also made this month the third-snowiest October on record, following 3.9 inches in October of 1975 and 6.1 inches in October of 1957.

Ultimately, a few inches of snow is not that big of a deal.

But once this storm reaches the middle of the country, it is going to dump up to 2 feet of snow on some of our most important agricultural areas…

A general 6-12 inches is forecast over much of the Dakotas. However, a large swath of 12-24 inches is likely with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 30 inches likely from north-central North Dakota to central and northeastern North Dakota.

Cities that could end up with 2 feet of snow include Bismarck, Jamestown and Devils Lake, North Dakota, as well as Mobridge, South Dakota, and Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Needless to say, that much snow at this time of the year is going to be absolutely devastating for many farmers.

And we are being told that this coming storm actually has “two parts”.  After the first part strikes, the second part is going to come rolling through on Friday and Saturday…

The storm will have two parts, the first of which is targeting the northern and central Rockies and High Plains on Wednesday into Thursday. The second part will bring snow to the eastern and central portions of the Dakotas and western Minnesota by week’s end.

“Near-blizzard to full-fledged blizzard conditions are possible across portions of central North Dakota Friday afternoon into Saturday morning,” the weather service in Bismarck said. “Expect high impacts and dangerous to impossible travel conditions.”

I can’t even imagine how corn and soybean farmers are going to feel once their unharvested fields are buried under two feet of snow.

As I keep warning, weather patterns just continue to become more extreme, and many believe that what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning of our problems (#ad).

There is one more thing that I would like to mention before I wrap up this article.

Do you remember the “Perfect Storm” that we witnessed in the Atlantic Ocean back in 1991?  Hollywood made a big movie about it, and that film ended up making more than 300 million dollars worldwide.

Well, according to Accuweather a very similar storm is now developing in roughly the same location…

Interestingly, around the same time in 1991, the “Perfect Storm” was in the making over the western Atlantic Ocean. There are some similarities to the pattern this week with a smaller storm taking shape and stalling just off the mid-Atlantic and New England coasts.

I found this to be particularly interesting, because I wrote an article about “the perfect storm” that is about to hit America just a few days ago.  If you missed it, you can find my article entitled “The Book Is About To Close On The Late Great United States Of America” right here.

We live in truly unprecedented times, and things are about to start getting really crazy out there.

So get prepared for “the perfect storm” while you still can, because time is quickly running out.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep.  I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters.  (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing those books you help to support my work.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles in written form on their own websites as long as this “About the Author” section is included.  In order to comply with government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished.  This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate.  You can follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of this website.

 

U.S. Representative Ted Lieu: There Is “More Than Enough” Evidence To Draft Articles Of Impeachment Right Now

A lot of conservatives still don’t realize what is about to happen.  The Democrats have already decided that articles of impeachment will be drafted, and they are planning on a vote by the end of this year.  Of course it is entirely possible that the timeline could get pushed back a bit, but this things is actually going to happen.  Many still seem to believe that the Democrats are going to “evaluate the evidence” before deciding what to do, but the truth is that most of them already have their minds made up.  For example, just check out what U.S. Representative Ted Lieu told CNN on Friday…

During an appearance on CNN Friday, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) said there was “more than enough” evidence to draft articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.

Lieu said, “Impeachment is one of the greatest powers of Congress. It should always be our last option, reserved only for those instances until we can’t wait until the next election. We’re at one of those times because the president continues to solicit foreign powers to interfere in our electoral politics.

Once the Democrats in the House vote to impeach Trump, a trial will be held in the Senate.

Theoretically, Trump should win in the Republican-controlled Senate, but the way Mitt Romney is talking is making a lot of people very nervous.

About the Author: I am a voice crying out for change in a society that generally seems content to stay asleep.  I am the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe.  I have written four books that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The End, Get Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters.  (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing those books you help to support my work.  I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles in written form on their own websites as long as this “About the Author” section is included.  In order to comply with government regulations, I need to tell you that the controversial opinions in this article are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the websites where my work is republished.  This article may contain opinions on political matters, but it is not intended to promote the candidacy of any particular political candidate.  You can follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter.  The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions.  Those responding to this article by making comments are solely responsible for their viewpoints, and those viewpoints do not necessarily represent the viewpoints of Michael Snyder or the operators of this website.

Trump: “As President I have an obligation to end CORRUPTION, even if that means requesting the help of a foreign country or countries.”

President Trump has posted yet another tweet that is likely to elicit howls of outrage from the left.  In the tweet, he claims that he has “an obligation to end CORRUPTION, even if that means requesting the help of a foreign country or countries.”  And he is exactly correct.  As the chief law enforcement officer in the land, President Trump should be cracking down on corruption wherever it is found.  But the Democrats are trying to twist Trump’s request of help from Ukraine into a campaign finance violation, which as I pointed out yesterday is absolutely absurd.  Unfortunately, at this point the Democrats are fully committed to going down the road of impeachment, and so there is no turning back now.  But as this process unfolds, Trump will just keep on tweeting, and the left will just keep becoming more and more hysterical.

As Prominent Republicans Betray Trump, The Media Urges Americans To Get Ready For “President Mike Pence”

Impeachment mania is reaching a fever pitch in Washington, and as I reported a couple of days ago, the Democrats are hoping to have articles of impeachment ready for a House vote around Thanksgiving.  But in order to impeach the president of the United States, you need to have an impeachable offense first, and even if everything that is being alleged is 100 percent true there is simply no impeachable offense in this case.  In recent days there has been a lot of talk about “the integrity of our elections” and Donald Trump has been accused of “betraying his oath of office”, but top Democrats never seem to publicly bring up any specific law that Trump has violated.  The U.S. Constitution sets a high standard for impeaching the president, and unless that standard is met, impeachment proceedings should not go forward.  Some progressive writers have attempted to suggest that Trump is guilty of bribery, extortion, obstruction of justice or a campaign finance violation, but none of those crimes comes anywhere close to fitting the facts of this case.  Democrats may have been offended by what Trump said during his call with the president of Ukraine, but being offended is not enough to impeach someone.

Just as Trump is commander in chief of the U.S. military, so also is he the top law enforcement official in the land.  And as the top law enforcement official, it is entirely appropriate for him to go after corruption wherever it is found.

Joe Biden and his son were clearly involved in some very shady things in Ukraine, and there is nothing wrong with Trump encouraging the president of Ukraine to look into those things.

Considering the current political climate in Washington, it may not have been the most advisable thing to do, but Trump certainly did not break any law.

And if the Republican Party was 100 percent united behind Trump, this entire saga would go away very quickly.  Once Democrats realized that there was zero chance of a successful vote in the Senate, the momentum toward impeachment would completely fizzle out.

But that isn’t happening.  In fact, a Republican member of the House just announced that he is publicly supporting the impeachment inquiry…

Rep. Mark Amodei supports the House’s inquiry into whether President Donald Trump should be impeached, but is withholding judgment on whether Trump has crossed the legal line.

“Let’s put it through the process and see what happens,” Amodei, the only Republican in the state’s congressional delegation, said on a call Friday with reporters, adding that he believes Congress is justified to look into the matter.

“I’m a big fan of oversight, so let’s let the committees get to work and see where it goes,” he added.

And this comes on the heels of two Republican governors coming out in favor of it as well…

Two Republican governors recently announced they are in favor of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, which makes them the very first members of the Republican Party to publicly voice support for the investigation.

Vermont Governor Phil Scott was the first GOP chief executive to throw his support behind the impeachment proceedings, saying he is not surprised by the president’s alleged actions. However, Scott warned Democrats to stay focused on the facts. He emphasized that the inquiry needs to be objective and should not be based on political motivations surrounding the upcoming election.
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Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said that he also supports a congressional investigation into President Trump.

In addition, Republican presidential candidate William Weld is making headlines all over the world by suggesting that President Trump deserves the death penalty…

The former Massachusetts Governor said that President Donald Trump’s ‘acts of treason’ in allegedly pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden deserved the death penalty.

During an interview on MSNBC’S Morning Joe, he claimed: ‘Talk about pressuring a foreign country to interfere with and control a U.S. election, it couldn’t be clearer.

‘And that’s not just undermining Democratic institutions, that is treason. It’s treason pure and simple and the penalty for treason under the U.S. code is death.’

Is he serious?

Personally, I don’t think that Weld even understands the definition of “treason”, and he should be completely and utterly ashamed of himself for suggesting such a thing.

In the end, what is really going to matter is what Republicans in the Senate think.  If there is a vote on articles of impeachment on the House floor, Nancy Pelosi is going to make sure that vote is successful.  Then this matter will go to the Senate, and it will take 67 votes to remove Trump from office.

Of course Democrats only have 47 seats in the Senate, and so you would think that this should be an insurmountable obstacle.

But the truth is that there are a lot of establishment Republicans in the Senate that do not like Trump at all, and it is being suggested that many of them may be willing to vote against Trump…

Former Republican Senator Jeff Flake said that he thinks at least 35 Republican senators would vote for President Donald Trump to be removed from office if they could vote in private.

Speaking at the 2019 Texas Tribune Festival Thursday, Flake was responding to comments made by Republican political consultant Mike Murphy on MSNBC who said that if there was a secret vote, at least 30 GOP Senators would back impeachment.

“That’s not true. There would be at least 35,” Flake said.

I warned that we could be facing this sort of scenario if we didn’t send the right people to Washington, and now Donald Trump’s fate could end up in the hands of a group of RINOs that do not feel any sense of loyalty to Trump at all.

And at this point the mainstream media smells blood and they are salivating over the prospect that Donald Trump could soon be removed from the White House.  In fact, B.J. Rudell is suggesting that it is time for Republicans “to rally around President Mike Pence”…

Republicans might still determine that abandoning Trump — and likely the presidency — is their best hope for preserving some power in Washington. But the longer they wait, the more politically damaging the breakup will be. End it now and there’s still time to rally around President Mike Pence and perhaps broaden the party’s appeal with the selection of a new vice president.

But the only way that Donald Trump is going to be removed from office is if he is voted out by the Republican-controlled Senate.

And if the Republican-controlled Senate actually did that, it would fracture the Republican Party beyond repair.

The Trump faction would be at war with the establishment faction, and it might even result in a split into two separate political parties.

Meanwhile, the Democrats would be laughing the entire time, and they would sweep the 2020 elections in a landslide of epic proportions.

So if the Republican Party wants any sort of a future at all, the Republicans in the Senate must stay united behind Trump.

Sadly, the truth is that more evidence continues to come out that indicates that this entire thing is a setup.  The Federalist’s Sean Davis has just pointed out that someone quietly altered the intelligence community whistleblower complaint form to allow submissions by individuals with no first-hand knowledge of the underlying evidence…

Between May 2018 and August 2019, the intelligence community secretly eliminated a requirement that whistleblowers provide direct, first-hand knowledge of alleged wrongdoings. This raises questions about the intelligence community’s behavior regarding the August submission of a whistleblower complaint against President Donald Trump. The new complaint document no longer requires potential whistleblowers who wish to have their concerns expedited to Congress to have direct, first-hand knowledge of the alleged wrongdoing that they are reporting.

The brand new version of the whistleblower complaint form, which was not made public until after the transcript of Trump’s July 25 phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and the complaint addressed to Congress were made public, eliminates the first-hand knowledge requirement and allows employees to file whistleblower complaints even if they have zero direct knowledge of underlying evidence and only “heard about [wrongdoing] from others.”

If that document had not been altered, the anonymous whistleblower would have never been able to submit his complaint in the first place.

And as I have already discussed, even if every single thing that is being alleged is true, there is simply no impeachable offense here.

But lawlessness is running rampant in Washington at this point, and it appears that a well-orchestrated plot to take Trump down in unfolding right in front of our eyes.

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. Of course the most important thing that we can share with people is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and if you would like to learn more about how you can become a Christian I would encourage you to read this article.

It Is Time To Go: Over Half Of All California Voters “Have Considered Leaving The State”

Why in the world does anyone still want to live in California?  Great weather and good paying jobs are the two biggest positives that residents often point out, but the high cost of living and the absolutely ridiculous housing prices often eat up all of the extra money that Californians think that they are making.  In fact, it was recently reported that it now takes approximately $350,000 a year to live a middle class lifestyle in the city of San Francisco.  If you have a ton of money, it can partially insulate you from the problems that are increasingly ravaging the state, but unless you never go out in public nothing is going to insulate you completely.  Cities all over the state are degenerating into drug-infested, crime-ridden hellholes that are literally being overrun by millions of rats.  California has some of the worst traffic in the entire world, unchecked illegal immigration is causing a whole host of social problems, and gang activity has become a massive problem.  On top of everything else, California is being constantly hit by wildfires, mudslides, earthquakes and other natural disasters.  In fact, scientists tell us that it is just a matter of time before “the Big One” hits, and that is probably one of the best reasons to leave California while you still can and never look back.

Yes, there are some California residents that continue to insist that it is a great place to live.

But if California is so wonderful, why have more than half of all California voters “considered leaving the state”?  The following comes from the Los Angeles Times…

Just over half of California’s registered voters have considered leaving the state, with soaring housing costs cited as the most common reason for wanting to move, according to a new poll.

Young voters were especially likely to cite unaffordable housing as a reason for leaving, according to the latest latest UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll conducted for the Los Angeles Times. But a different group, conservatives, also frequently suggested they wanted to leave — and for a very different reason: They feel alienated from the state’s political culture.

With the way the state is being run, conservatives have been moving out of California in large numbers for years.  In fact, I have a number of really good friends that left the state for political reasons and will never return.

On the other hand, California’s reputation for handing out free goodies has been a magnet for another class of people.  Today, almost half of all homeless people in the entire nation live in the state of California, and this has become such a huge crisis that it literally makes headlines all over the globe.

For example, the following comes from an article in a British news source…

Cali Carlisle admits she is a heroin addict — ‘but in a healthy way,’ she insists, even if the visual evidence belies that claim.

Her nose is the brightest shade of red imaginable. She constantly picks at scabs all over her body. Her home is a makeshift bed beneath Interstate 80 in Sacramento.

And Monday was her 26th birthday. Not that you would ever guess. Anyone looking at her would think she is at least 15 years older.

This is the cold, hard reality of the glorious drug lifestyle that so many go to California to experience.

Every year, thousands upon thousands of young people that once had bright futures ahead of them end up on the streets, in prison or dead due to this raging epidemic.

And one of the places where it is the worst is in the capital of the state itself.  Not too long ago, a salon owner in Sacramento made headlines all over the nation when her rant about homelessness on social media went viral…

“I just want to tell you what happens when I get to work,” stated Liz Novak, a local salon owner, to the media about what she’s had to deal with trying to conduct business in Sacramento.

“I have to clean up the poop and the pee off of my doorstep. I have to clean-up the syringes. I have to politely ask the people who I care for – I care for these people that are homeless – to move their tents out of the way of the door to my business.”

She ultimately had to move her salon completely because it became clear that things were not going to get better any time soon.

In the state of California today, virtually everything has been defiled.

At one time, California was teeming with natural beauty.  But today the entire state has become a trash dumpster, and that includes California’s once pristine beaches.  Just check out what Dr. Drew Pinsky recently told Laura Ingraham…

“There is an organization out here called Heal the Bay which keeps tabs on safety of our beaches in Southern California, from Orange County to Ventura. Since the rains last Winter, [Heal the Bay] has been giving our beaches C’s to F’s, and F means completely overrun with fecal bacteria. What comes with that are other things like syringes, Hepatitis A and other infectious diseases.”

On top of everything else, seismic activity is a constant threat.

There have been more than 1,500 earthquakes in California and Nevada over the past 7 days, and these days that is considered to be a slow week.

Of course most of the earthquakes are very small, but scientists assure us that one of these days “the Big One” will hit the state.  When that day arrives, the geography of the state will be radically changed, and the death and destruction will be off the charts.

We live at a time when our planet is being greatly shaken, and many believe that what we have seen so far is just the beginning.

The coastline of the state of California lies directly along the infamous “Ring of Fire”, and scientists have been persistently warning us that the San Andreas fault is “locked and loaded” and could possibly “unzip all at once”.

It is such a shame what has happened to the state.  California should be one of the most beautiful, prosperous and enjoyable places to live in the entire world.  Unfortunately, Californians have been making exceedingly poor choices for decades, and the consequences of those decisions will be extremely bitter indeed.

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. Of course the most important thing that we can share with people is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and if you would like to learn more about how you can become a Christian I would encourage you to read this article.

A Majority Of The House Now Supports Impeachment – And Some Republicans Senators Are Looking Really Shaky

According to the latest count by NBC News, most of the members of the U.S. House of Representatives now support moving forward with impeachment.  And that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi shocked the country by announcing the initiation of an impeachment inquiry this week.  But what is surprising is the number of Republicans that are expressing concerns about Trump.  In the end, this entire ordeal may come down to a vote in the U.S. Senate, and President Trump desperately needs Republicans to stay united.  Unfortunately, even after the release of the transcript of President Trump’s conversation with the President of Ukraine (which you can read right here), some “moderate” Republicans are clearly not standing behind the president.  All that it would take to completely kill the move toward impeachment is a completely united Republican Party, and right now that is not happening.

But of course impeachment proceedings begin in the House, and that is where the focus is right now.

According to the latest count, 220 members of the House “now favor some kind of impeachment action”…

Two hundred and nineteen House Democrats and one independent — a majority of the chamber’s 435 members — now favor some kind of impeachment action against President Donald Trump, according to an NBC News tally.

House Democrats reached the milestone a day after Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a formal impeachment inquiry into the president following claims that he might have withheld aid to Ukraine to pressure officials there to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.

At this point the Democrats have a solid majority in the House of Representatives, and that is bad news for Trump.

If a vote was taken at this moment, even before any evidence is formally presented, I believe that they would vote to impeach Trump.

In the end, it really doesn’t matter what the truth is in this case.  The Democrats want Trump out, and if it comes to a vote they are going to vote to impeach.

Of course any shred of evidence that could potentially strengthen their case is going to be treated like gold by the Democrats, and several of them had an opportunity to finally read the whistleblower complaint on Wednesday.  The following comes from Politico…

A select group of lawmakers reviewed the whistleblower complaint Wednesday while on Capitol Hill. While the members of Congress could not disclose details of the whistleblower complaint, several said that it was cause for concern.

“Having read the documents in there, I’m even more worried about what happened than when I read the memorandum of the conversation,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said. “There are so many facts that have to be examined. It’s very troubling.”

When Congressman Mike Quigley was asked about the document, he could hardly contain himself as he described how “alarming” it was…

Quigley asserted the whistleblower complaint “is the political equivalent” of Trump’s claim during his 2016 presidential campaign that he could “stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody” without losing voters.

“What the President said during the campaign, he said he could shoot someone on the street and his base would stay with him. I guess what I read, to me, was the political equivalent of that: defying the constitution, committing a criminal act and thinking, ‘Well I can get away with it,’ ” he said. “Some sort of bizarre cult of personality. Deeply disturbing what we read this morning. Alarming.”

But those sorts of comments are expected from the Democrats.

What is not expected is the number of Republicans that are refusing to back President Trump right now.

For instance, just consider what Republican Senator Ben Sasse just said…

Asked if the mere act of a U.S. president asking a foreign government to investigate the family of his American political rival is an abuse of power, Sasse said: “There’s a lot that we’re hearing about right now that’s leading people to ask a bunch of hypotheticals where we don’t really know all the underlying facts yet. So I don’t think it’s all that useful to speculate about a lot of highly particular hypotheticals. But in general terms, American elections should be for Americans. And the idea that we would have foreign nation-states coming into the American electoral process, or the information surrounding an election, is really, really bad.”

And after reading the transcript of the phone conversation, U.S. Senator Mitt Romney told the press that he found it to be “deeply troubling”…

“It remains troubling in the extreme. It’s deeply troubling,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) told reporters Wednesday, when asked about the transcript.

Three Senate GOP aides said Wednesday that their bosses were grousing and frustrated by the White House’s decision and the sense that Republican lawmakers were being forced into the difficult position of defending Trump while contending with what many see as an alarming or at least problematic transcript.

At this point, it is being reported that Republicans in the Senate have already divided into two camps.  One is being called “the Burr Camp”, and the other is being called “the Johnson camp”, and both camps are taking very different approaches…

One early divide among Senate Republicans is between the “Burr camp” and the “Johnson camp,” according to two senior GOP aides who were not authorized to speak publicly, referring to Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. Burr’s faction of the Senate GOP has a darker, frustrated view of Trump’s handling of Ukraine, while Johnson’s wing is more focused on probing Biden, the aides said.

We shall see how events unfold over the next few months, but right now it doesn’t appear to be smooth sailing for President Trump.

And adding to Trump’s difficulties is the fact that a Ukrainian official has come forward claiming that it was well understood by the Ukrainians that President Trump would only speak to the new president of Ukraine if Joe Biden’s corruption would be part of the conversation.  The following comes from ABC News…

“It was clear that [President Donald] Trump will only have communications if they will discuss the Biden case,” said Serhiy Leshchenko, an anti-corruption advocate and former member of Ukraine’s Parliament, who now acts as an adviser to Zelenskiy. “This issue was raised many times. I know that Ukrainian officials understood.”

The Trump administration’s alleged insistence that the two leaders discuss a prospective investigation into Biden, one of the president’s political opponents, casts his July 25 conversation with Zelenskiy in a new light.

In the end, even if President Trump tried to pressure the Ukrainians to look into Joe Biden’s corruption, that definitely does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense.

But the Democrats are more than willing to twist the Constitution if that is what it takes to get Donald Trump out of the Oval Office.

So now we have high drama in Washington, and it threatens to tear this country apart.

Nancy Pelosi essentially committed herself to going down the road of impeachment when she made her announcement earlier this week, and it is just a matter of time before we see a vote in the House.

And Pelosi will make sure that the vote is successful, and so that means that Trump’s fate will end up in the U.S. Senate.

In order to remove Trump from office, it will take 67 votes in the Senate, and the Democrats only have 47 seats.

So they would need 20 Republican votes, and at this point we don’t know if there are that many Republicans that are willing to stab him in the back.

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. Of course the most important thing that we can share with people is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and if you would like to learn more about how you can become a Christian I would encourage you to read this article.

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