The Mystery Plague That Is Killing Countless Birds In 9 States And Washington D.C. Has Gotten A Lot Worse

Large numbers of birds are dropping dead from a “mystery disease” throughout much of the eastern half of the country, and scientists still have absolutely no idea why this is happening.  They have tested the dead birds for a whole host of known illnesses, but those tests have not revealed the cause of this plague.  We are being told that a lot of the affected birds appear to develop neurological problems, and many of them go completely blind before they finally die.  The “mystery disease” has spread to more states since I first wrote about this plague, and at this point the list of affected areas includes Washington D.C., Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana.  If authorities are unable to find a solution, will this plague eventually spread across the entire nation?

I don’t know why the mainstream media is not giving this story more coverage, because this is quickly turning into a major crisis.

The following comes directly from a statement that was posted late last week on the official website of the USGS

In late May, wildlife managers in Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky began receiving reports of sick and dying birds with eye swelling and crusty discharge, as well as neurological signs. More recently, additional reports have been received from Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. While the majority of affected birds are reported to be fledgling common grackles, blue jays, European starlings and American robins, other species of songbirds have been reported as well. No definitive cause(s) of illness or death have been determined at this time. No human health or domestic livestock and poultry issues have been reported.

The natural resource management agencies in the affected states and the District of Columbia, along with the National Park Service, are continuing to work with diagnostic laboratories to investigate the cause(s) of this event. Those laboratories include the USGS National Wildlife Health Center, the University of Georgia Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, the University of Pennsylvania Wildlife Futures Program and the Indiana Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory.

With each passing day, more birds are going blind and more birds are dying.

In Virginia, an animal control professional named Jennifer Toussaint will never forget the first time that she encountered baby blue jays that had been afflicted by this mysterious illness

Jennifer Toussaint, chief of animal control in Arlington, Virginia, can’t forget the four baby blue jays. In late May, worried residents had delivered the fledglings to her clinic just outside of Washington, D.C., within just a few hours. Each was plump, indicating “their parents had done a great job caring for them,” Toussaint says. But the birds were lethargic, unable to keep their balance, and blinded by crusty, oozing patches that had grown over their eyes.

Toussaint and her staff soon reached a gloomy diagnosis: the jays were the latest victims of a mysterious deadly disease that had emerged in their area just a few weeks earlier and had already killed countless wild birds. There was no known treatment, so they euthanized the jays. “It was difficult to feel so helpless,” Toussaint recalls.

Experts have never seen anything like this before, and they are in a race to try to find some answers.

Whatever is causing this, it appears to be affecting a wide range of species

Several species of birds have been affected by the mystery illness, according to the University of Pennsylvania: blue jay, European starling, common grackle, American robin, northern cardinal, house finch, house sparrow, Eastern bluebird, red-bellied woodpecker, Carolina chickadee, and Carolina wren.

And at this point, the “mystery disease” appears to have spread very widely.

For example, in the state of Virginia there have been confirmed reports “in the counties and cities of Alexandria, Arlington, Clarke, Fairfax, Falls Church, Fauquier, Frederick, Loudoun, Manassas, Prince William, Shenandoah, Warren, and Winchester.”

In Indiana, cases have now been identified in 53 different counties.

So if this is something that is spreading from bird to bird, it is spreading very easily and it is spreading very rapidly.

But at this point we don’t know for sure that it is some sort of a disease, because so far all of the tests that have been done haven’t come up with much of anything….

Natural resource management agencies in all of the affected states and D.C. are working with the National Park Service to investigate this event.

So far, several infectious agents have not been detected in any of the birds that have been tested, including Salmonella and Chlamydia, avian influenza, West Nile virus and other flaviviruses, Newcastle disease virus and other paramyxoviruses, herpesviruses and poxviruses, and Trichomonas parasites.

Something other than a disease could potentially be causing this plague.

We just don’t know.

At one point it was being theorized that eating cicadas was causing these birds to become ill, but scientists appear to have ruled this theory out

But the cicadas appear to be blameless. Birds tend to avoid eating fungus-ridden cicadas, and sick birds have been observed in areas where cicadas were rare. “It does not look like it’s a match,” says Brian Evans, a migratory bird ecologist with the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute.

So many strange things have been happening in 2021.

As I discussed yesterday, right now we are witnessing a horrifying plague of grasshoppers in the western half of the country, and at the same time we have a nightmarish plague of dead birds in the eastern half of the country.

On top of everything else, we are right in the midst of a “megadrought” which may end up becoming the worst in the entire history of our nation.

Many believe that it is just a “coincidence” that so many bad things are happening to us all at once, and perhaps they are correct.

But nobody can deny that our world has gotten a whole lot crazier over the last couple of years, and I expect quite a bit more craziness during the second half of 2021.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The EndGet Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd 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 always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  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.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on FacebookTwitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

Why Are Large Numbers Of Birds Suddenly Dropping Dead In Multiple U.S. States?

As if we didn’t have enough weird things going on, now birds are suddenly dropping dead in large numbers all across the eastern half of the country.  Before they die, a lot of these birds are exhibiting very strange symptoms.  Experts are telling us that in many cases birds are developing “crusty or puffy eyes”, and often they appear to go completely blind.  In addition, quite a few of these dying birds lose their ability to stay balanced, and we are being told that some even seem to be having “seizures”.  If scientists understood what was causing this to happen, that would be one thing.  But at this point they have no idea why this is taking place, and that is quite alarming.

So far, confirmed incidents of this strange phenomenon have been documented in Washington D.C., Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana.

Could it be possible that we are dealing with a “mystery disease” that started in one state and that has now spread to other surrounding states?

Or is something else going on here?

We are being told that “blue jays, common grackles and European starlings” are the most common birds that are being affected.

But whatever is happening is not just limited to one species of birds, and I think that should be a red flag.

If our best experts even had a decent working theory about why so many birds are dying, I probably would not have written this article.  But at this point they are openly admitting that they have absolutely no idea why so many birds are suddenly dropping dead…

“We’re experiencing an unusual amount of bird mortality this year,” said Kate Slankard, an avian biologist with the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “We have yet to figure out what the problem is. The condition seems to be pretty deadly.”

In Kentucky, the bird deaths seem to have begun in late May.  The following comes directly from the official website of the Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife Resources…

In late May, the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources began receiving reports of sick and dying birds with eye swelling and crusty discharge, as well as neurological signs. Wildlife agencies in Indiana, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, Washington, D.C. and West Virginia have reported similar problems.

State wildlife agencies are working with diagnostic laboratories to investigate the cause of mortality. Kentucky Fish and Wildlife has sent more than 20 samples for lab testing to the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study at the University of Georgia. More results are pending, but no definitive cause of death has been identified at this time.

After testing 20 samples, they still have no idea what is going on.

According to Slankard, “hundreds of birds” in her state have now become victims…

“They’ll just sit still, often kind of shaking,” Slankard said. “It’s pretty safe to say that hundreds of birds in the state have had this problem.”

But of course the truth is that we have no way of knowing how many birds have actually been affected.

It could be thousands of birds in the state.

It could be hundreds of thousands.

We just don’t know, and Kentucky is just one of the states that has been hit.

In Indiana, authorities tested for avian flu and West Nile virus, but those tests came back negative

Indiana wildlife officials said there have been suspicious deaths of blue jays, robins, northern cardinals and brown-headed cowbirds in five counties. James Brindle, spokesman for the state’s Department of Natural Resources, said birds there have tested negative for avian influenza and West Nile virus.

One theory that is floating around is that these birds are ingesting large amounts of pesticides because of all the cicadas that they are eating.

Some experts are flatly dismissing that theory because “the disease has also appeared in states where cicadas are not present”.

But how can they be so sure that it is a disease if they have absolutely no idea why this is happening?

I don’t think that we should jump to any conclusions that are not backed up by science.

Obviously a lot more testing needs to be done.  If it does turn out to be a disease that is causing this, is it a disease that can also spread to humans?  Moving forward, that could be one of the most important questions that needs to be answered.

Hopefully we can get some solid answers, because this is not the first time something like this has happened.  Back in September, one expert said that it appeared that “hundreds of thousands” of birds were dropping dead in New Mexico…

Wildlife experts in New Mexico say birds in the region are dropping dead in alarming numbers, potentially in the “hundreds of thousands.”

“It appears to be an unprecedented and a very large number,” Martha Desmond, a professor at New Mexico State University’s department of fish, wildlife, and conservation ecology, told NBC’s Albuquerque affiliate KOB.

But whatever was causing those deaths to happen in New Mexico seems to have stopped.

Is there any connection between that event and the deaths that are happening in the eastern half of the country now?

I wish that I had the answer to that question.

We live at a time when pesticides, high technology and other forms of human activity are having a greater impact on birds and animals than ever before.  But we have also entered an era when I believe that great pestilences are going to become very common.

Obviously something is killing all those birds, and hopefully scientists will have something solid to tell us very soon.

With each passing day, our world is getting crazier, and so much is going wrong all around us.

Many are hoping that 2020 and 2021 will just turn out to be anomalies, but I am entirely convinced that they are just the very small tip of a very large iceberg.

***Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.***

About the Author: My name is Michael Snyder and my brand new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available on Amazon.com.  In addition to my new book, I have written four others that are available on Amazon.com including The Beginning Of The EndGet Prepared Now, and Living A Life That Really Matters. (#CommissionsEarned)  By purchasing the books you help to support the work that my wife and I are doing, and by giving it to others you help to multiply the impact that we are having on people all over the globe.  I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse BlogEnd 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 always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article.  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.  I encourage you to follow me on social media on FacebookTwitter and Parler, and any way that you can share these articles with others is a great help.  During these very challenging times, people will need hope more than ever before, and it is our goal to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we possibly can.

10 Very Strange Facts About The August 21 Solar Eclipse That Will Absolutely Blow Your Mind

In just a matter of days we are going to witness the most unusual solar eclipse in U.S. history. Could it be possible that all of the very strange “coincidences” surrounding this event have some sort of special significance?  The mainstream media has been buzzing about this upcoming solar eclipse for months, and it will easily be the most watched eclipse in all of U.S. history.  Last week, I published an article entitled “12 Critical Events That Are Going To Happen Over A 40 Day Period From August 21st To September 30th” that received an extraordinary amount of attention, and of course the first event on that list was “the Great American Eclipse” on the 21st.  As you will see below, so many numbers seem to indicate that this eclipse could have some sort of special significance, and it begins a period of exactly 40 days that many believe could be a turning point for America.

In the Scriptures, we are specifically told that one of the reasons why God created the sun and the moon was so that they could serve as “signs”.  The following is what Genesis 1:14 tells us…

“And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years

And in Luke 21:25, the Lord Jesus specifically warned us to watch for signs “in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars” just prior to His return.

So we should be watching, and we should fully expect to see something happen up there before Christ comes back.

With that in mind, I would like to share some amazing facts about the solar eclipse on August 21st with you.  These were originally compiled by The Countdown Report, and when I first read them they definitely got my attention…

-First contact is in the state of Oregon, the 33rd state in the USA. The last contact is in South Carolina on the 33rd parallel. This eclipse happens on day 233 of the year. If the Revelation 12 sign is valid, then the eclipse is also 33 days before September 23, 2017. Jesus is thought to have been 33 when He died.

-Just for fun: It is 99 years (3 x 33) since the last eclipse to go coast-to-coast in the US, in 1918. From September 23, 2017 (Revelation 12 sign) to the end of the year, December 31, 2017 is 99 days (or 3 x 33). The number of days from the 1918 eclipse to the August 21 eclipse are 26,234 days. (2+6+2+3+4 = 17; 2017?). From August 12, 2017, the date of the Charlottesville Virginia “State of Emergency” declared to the August 21, 2017 Great Solar Eclipse is 9 days (3+3+3) and the dates are also mirrored – 12 and 21.

-First big city the eclipse hits in Oregon is Salem – Salem was named after Jerusalem. The eclipse also begins in Oregon exactly at sunset time in Jerusalem. So technically speaking, as the sun sets in America it will be setting in Jerusalem at the same time.

-The center line crosses through 12 primary states to receive total darkness. 12 disciples, 12 months in a year, the meaning of 12, which is considered a perfect number, is that it symbolizes God’s power and authority, as well as serving as a perfect governmental foundation.

-The eclipse path is exactly 70 miles wide. 70 has a sacred meaning in the Bible that has two perfect numbers, 7 that represents perfection and 10 that represents completeness and God’s law. 70 also symbolizes perfect spiritual order and a period of judgment. 70 is also specially connected with Jerusalem with so many references it would take a book to write.

-Another eclipse comes in 2024, 7 years after the August 21, 2017 and marks an X over the United States. The combined time of totality of these eclipses together will be 7 minutes. The day of the eclipse is August 21, 2017 – (7 + 7 + 7 = 21). The exact point where the two eclipses cross is right next to Cedar Lake in Illinois… specifically right next to SALEM Road. (Salem again!)

-The original form of the Hebrew letter Tav is like the English letter X or T – which is in the shape of a cross, or X– like the X that is made by the two solar eclipses on the cross paths over 7 years. The letter Tav means “a sign”.

-The path of the eclipse will be situated in such a way that every single state of the US will experience it, even Hawaii and Alaska.

-The totality will reach Oregon at 10:16 AM Pacific, and will end in South Carolina at 2:49 PM Eastern. That means it will take 1 hour and 33 minutes to cross the country. There is that 33 again.

-The eclipse is also exactly 40 days from Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur means “Day of Atonement” and is a time of repentance. While the eclipse day itself may come and go with everything remaining “normal” afterwards, we need to be focused on what could be coming soon after.

You can read the entire list of 33 facts that were compiled by The Countdown Report right here.  I just pulled out the ten that I considered to be the most remarkable.

According to Rachel Baxter, “40 is the number for waiting, preparation, testing or punishment. It is also the number to start a new chapter of the history of salvation”, and we see the number 40 pop up time after time in the Bible.

For instance, in Jonah 3:4 the prophet Jonah gave Ninevah a period of 40 days to repent before judgment would begin…

And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

Could this coming 40 day time period have some sort of special significance for us?

Like I said in my previous article, I don’t know if all of this means anything.

But Jesus did specifically instruct us to watch for signs in the sun and the moon, and the solar eclipse on August 21st involves both the sun and the moon.

On August 21st, I am going to be able to travel into the path of this eclipse.  Hopefully it will be a very clear day and I will be able to get some very clear pictures for my readers.

I don’t expect anything world shattering to take place on that particular day, but like millions of other Americans, I will definitely be looking up into the sky to see what happens…

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

12 Critical Events That Are Going To Happen Over A 40 Day Period From August 21st To September 30th

We are about to witness an extremely unusual convergence of events that many believe could represent a major turning point for our nation.  By now you have probably heard that on August 21st a total solar eclipse will move across the entire continental United States for the first time in decades.  In fact, we have not seen a total solar eclipse cross from the west coast to the east coast in 99 years.  And it will be the very first total solar eclipse that is only visible in this country since the United States first became a nation.  Starting with that event, there is going to be a whole lot going on until we reach the end of September.  The following are 12 critical events that are going to happen over a 40 day period from August 21st to September 30th…

August 21 – The “Great American Eclipse” will sweep across portions of Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.  Seven years later, another very unusual total solar eclipse will move across our nation, and when you plot the paths of both eclipses on a map, they form a giant “X” right over the center of the United States.

August 23 – A FEMA exercise known as “EarthEX2017” will simulate “catastrophes such as mega earthquakes, cyber terrorism or high altitude electromagnetic pulse attacks”

An exercise sponsored by FEMA and the U.S. Department of Energy set to take place on August 23 called EarthEX2017 will wargame responses to catastrophes such as mega earthquakes, cyber terrorism or high altitude electromagnetic pulse attacks.

The exercise will simulate a “subcontinent-scale, long duration power outage, with cascading failures of all other infrastructures,” according to the official Earth Ex website.

“Black sky events” are defined as, “Catastrophic occurrences caused by man or nature that bring society to its knees.”

September 1 – This marks the start of FEMA’s annual “National Preparedness Month“.

September 1 – The U.S. State Department’s ban on U.S. citizens traveling into North Korea goes into effect.  Many are concerned that this is yet another sign that we are moving toward war with North Korea.

September 11 – This will be the 16th anniversary of 9/11.

September 20 – Rosh Hashanah begins at sunset.

September 21The UN International Day Of Peace

September 23 – This is the date of what has become known as “the Revelation 12 sign”.  If you are not familiar with this alignment yet, the following is a very brief summary

On September 23rd a unique astronomical alignment of the Sun, Moon, constellation Virgo, constellation Leo, and planets Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, and Venus is going to fulfill this passage from the book of Revelation:

And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.  She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth.

September 24 – Very important national elections will be held in Germany.

September 29 – Yom Kippur begins at sunset, and it concludes on September 30th.  Of course September 30th will be the end of a 40 day period that began back on the day of the Great American Eclipse on August 21st.

September 29 – U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says that the debt ceiling will be breached on this day if Congress does not raise it by then.

September 30 – If Congress does not pass a budget by the end of this day, there will be a government shutdown just like we witnessed in 2013.

On top of everything else, the month of September is when the Federal Reserve is scheduled to begin unwinding  their 4.5 trillion dollar balance sheet

The other big market force that could ruffle markets is clearly the Fed, which is expected to begin the untested task of unwinding its $4.5 trillion balance sheet in September.

In addition, it is very interesting to note that a large asteroid will come within 4,200 miles of our planet on October 12th…

The asteroid has not been seen since its 2012 discovery, when it sped past Earth at about one-fourth the distance from Earth to the moon. It’s been too distant and too faint to be detected over the last five years. As it starts to approach Earth this summer, large telescopes will be used to detect it and re-establish the asteroid’s precise trajectory.

The asteroid, known as 2012 TC4, could come as close as 4,200 miles to Earth, NASA said. That’s actually fairly close, when you consider that the moon is about 239,000 miles away.

So what does all of this mean?

I don’t know, but I am sure that I will receive even more criticism for putting this list together.  Those of us that monitor global events and warn about where things are headed are often highly criticized.  But in this day and age, we desperately need independent thinkers that are willing to challenge the system.  Way too often people just go with the herd and will believe whatever the mainstream media tells them to think.

Never let someone else do your thinking for you.  Investigate things for yourself and come to your own conclusions.  Learning to think critically is one of the most important skills that you can have, and you will find that it is one of the most common traits among those that are truly “awake” to what is going on in the world.

The truth is out there, and if you diligently seek it you will eventually find it.

Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.

Creepy Clown Sightings Sweep The Nation As The Threats Of Violence Become Even More Chilling

creepy-clown-posted-by-jamie-hill-on-facebookAll over America sick and twisted people are dressing up like creepy clowns in order to frighten the living daylights out of others.  This trend started back in August, and since then social media has helped it spread like wildfire.  So far there have been creepy clown sightings in 11 different states, and Mississippi and Kentucky have been added to the list since my last article.  A lot of young kids seem to think that this is a great idea for a “prank”, but authorities are taking the creepy clown phenomenon very, very seriously because in recent days the threats of violence have become much more chilling.  Individuals posing as “creepy clowns” on social media are openly naming specific schools that they plan to target and are threatening to commit horrific acts of violence.  That may sound like an interesting plot for a Hollywood horror movie, but in real life these kinds of threats have very serious consequences.

On Monday, several schools in Alabama were placed on lockdown due to threats from a group known as “Flomo Klown”

A number of Alabama schools were on lockdown on Monday after a series of Facebook posts from users posing as clowns threatened local children with violence.

Posts on the group ‘Flomo Klown’ warned that clowns may show up at two schools in the Birmingham area and one student alerted local police.

Fortunately, authorities were able to identify the people that were making those threats.  The police discovered that two juveniles and one adult were involved, and so far one arrest has been made in the case.

But that isn’t the only example of “creepy clowns” threatening to commit violence at schools.  A short-lived Facebook account under the name of “Bingerman Clownferd” issued a profanity-laced warning to five specific schools in the Montgomery, Alabama area on September 17th.  The following comes from a local Montgomery news report

A newly created Facebook account named Bingerman Clownferd began posting about visiting Montgomery schools last week. This weekend, Clownferd caused a stir on social media with a post listing which Montgomery schools would be visited:

bingerman-clownferd-from-facebook

The posts include vulgar language and threats of violence and began the day after Flomaton Police Department arrested two juveniles and an adult for a similar threat that caused a soft lockdown at Flomaton schools.

“I’m the southlawn clown I saw all of you all today at school I watched y’all walk home ik who y’all are if I don’t get u tonight it will be monday (sic),” Clownferd posted on Sept. 16.

As I stated above, law enforcement authorities are taking these threats very seriously.  And considering the terror attacks that we just witnessed in New York, New Jersey and Minnesota, they would be foolish not to do so.

Elsewhere in Alabama, security was tightened at a middle school in Calhoun County because someone on Facebook threatened to come to the school and “start shooting”

Extra deputies patrolled Saks Middle School in Calhoun County after someone threatened on Facebook to start shooting at the school. A 16-year-old Pleasant Valley resident was arrested and charged with terrorist threats. Since the suspect is a minor, their name was a not released. Calhoun County Chief Deputy Matthew Wade described the incident as troubling.

“It’s really disturbing in today’s world that people are doing this to scare others,” he said. “We are going to find the people who did this. There are consequences when you make threats.”

In Etowah County, a social media post hinting about a clown visit at Rainbow Middle School and John Jones Elementary caught authorities attention on Sunday. Police presence was increased at the schools on Monday and a Gadsden City High School freshman was questioned by Rainbow City Police about the matter. Chief Jonathon Horton said the department is collaborating with juvenile probation and the Gadsden City School system to figure out how to move forward in the case.

No “prank” should ever involve threats of violence.  Many young people don’t realize this, but anonymous threats of violence can actually get you charged under terrorism laws.  So you may think that what you are doing is quite funny, but it could end up landing you behind bars for an extended period of time.

Some sick individuals have gone beyond threats and are actually terrorizing people in person.  Just check out what happened in Brighton, Alabama on Sunday and Monday

In Brighton, a suspect dressed as a clown jumped out of the bushes and chased two teens down the street on Sunday. The incident happened at 8 p.m. on Huntsville Avenue near King Street.

Authorities said the suspect fled in a white van similar to a Chevrolet Astro Van. Brighton police Chief Ray Hubbart said the children and their parents are still a little terrified. Since the investigation is ongoing, anyone with information is asked to call Brighton police at 205-425-8934.

In another incident, on Monday night an 18-year-old was arrested in West Blocton after jumping in front of a car while wearing a clown mask, according to WBRC.

A similar incident just took place in northwest Georgia, but in this instance the “creepy clown” was actually holding what appeared to be a knife…

The first incident involved a “creepy clown” chasing a couple of kids from a store parking lot back to their home, reports show.

“According to the complainant, a person dressed as a creepy clown and wielding what appeared to be a knife, allegedly chased her 17-year-old daughter and 11-year-old niece from the lot of the Mapco convenience store back to their Fernwood Drive apartment,” officer Mitchell Moore said.

Was it just a prank, or did that “creepy clown” actually intend to do harm to those children?

Fortunately we did not find out, and it was probably just someone trying to pull a “prank”, but if authorities would have caught up with this individual they would have thrown him in jail.

With each passing day, more photos of these “creepy clowns” are being posted on social media websites.  A Facebook user named Jamie Hill just posted a picture of a “creepy clown” that is getting a lot of attention that was taken on the side of the 192 highway in London, Kentucky.  You can view it on Facebook right here

creepy-clown-posted-by-jamie-hill-on-facebook

This is the description that Jamie Hill posted along with the photograph…

So, I was a little scared to post this because I didn’t think anyone would believe me until Kelly Hill told me that one of her friends just had seen a clown here in London. Amy Gunter And I was out tonight & was headed back home on 192 & saw this. Now, it’s not a really good picture because I couldn’t stop, there was people behind me. I seriously think this clown thing has gotten out of hand & someone is going to get hurt. Please share this so people around London will know that they are here!

As I stated in my previous article, dressing up as a “creepy clown” is a quick and easy way for unbalanced individuals to get media attention, and so we are likely to see this trend continue to intensify.  And of course Halloween is quickly approaching, and creepy clown costumes are always popular this time of the year.

But this has long since stopped being funny.  The threats of violence are becoming increasingly disturbing, and it is only a matter of time before someone goes too far and people start getting seriously hurt.  So let us hope that this “trend” fades away soon and people start moving on to other things.

The Bitter, Crushing Poverty Of Appalachia Is A Preview Of What Is Coming To The Rest Of The Country

Appalachia - Photo from the Appalachian Regional CommissionWhat do you say to people that have completely lost all hope that things will ever get any better?  The mountains of Appalachia stretch all the way from southern New York to northern Mississippi, and nestled within those mountains are dozens upon dozens of little towns that are so impoverished that they look like they have been through a war.  Thanks to Barack Obama’s relentless assault on the coal industry and the ongoing collapse of our industrial infrastructure, Appalachia has lost millions of good paying jobs over the past several decades.  Today, more than 40 percent of the population is living in poverty in some areas of eastern Kentucky, and addiction to “hillbilly heroin” (Oxycontin) is absolutely out of control throughout the region.  Yes, poverty is on the rise all over America, but it has especially been cruel to those that make the mountains of Appalachia their home.

An article that was published in the Guardian on Thursday profiled the deeply impoverished town of Beattyville in eastern Kentucky.  Life is very hard in Beattyville today, and it seems to be getting harder all the time…

The town’s poverty rate is 44% above the national average. Half of its families live below the poverty line. That includes three-quarters of those with children, with the attendant consequences. More than one-third of teenagers drop out of high school or leave without graduating. Just 5% of residents have college degrees.

Surrounding communities are little better. Beattyville is the capital of Lee County, named after the commander of the Confederate army of Northern Virginia in the civil war, General Robert E Lee.

Five of the 10 poorest counties in the US run in a line through eastern Kentucky and they include Lee County. Life expectancy in the county is among the worst in the US, which is not unconnected to the fact that more than half the population is obese. Men lived an average of just 68.3 years in 2013, a little more than eight years short of the national average. Women lived 76.4 years on average, about five years short of national life expectancy.

Because life can be so bitter in little towns like Beattyville, many have chosen to turn to alcohol and drugs in an attempt to escape reality.  The following description of what life is like in the region today comes from Kevin D. Williamson

Thinking about the future here and its bleak prospects is not much fun at all, so instead of too much black-minded introspection you have the pills and the dope, the morning beers, the endless scratch-off lotto cards, healing meetings up on the hill, the federally funded ritual of trading cases of food-stamp Pepsi for packs of Kentucky’s Best cigarettes and good old hard currency, tall piles of gas-station nachos, the occasional blast of meth, Narcotics Anonymous meetings, petty crime, the draw, the recreational making and surgical unmaking of teenaged mothers, and death: Life expectancies are short — the typical man here dies well over a decade earlier than does a man in Fairfax County, Va. — and they are getting shorter, women’s life expectancy having declined by nearly 1.1 percent from 1987 to 2007.

Many of you that are reading this article know exactly what Williamson is talking about, because you are living in one of those communities.  It can be absolutely soul crushing to look into the hollow eyes of those that have long since given up on life day after day.  There are some communities in America where you can feel the bitterness the moment that you drive into them.  It is almost as if all of the life has been sucked out of the entire town.  If you have ever experienced this, you know what I mean.

If there is hope, most people can endure just about anything.  But when there is no hope, that is when deep depression sets in.  And for many of those living in Appalachia, hope has long since departed.  Just consider the words of long-time Beattyville resident Ed Courier

“It’s bad. I don’t think rural America has a future,” said Courier. “The advantage rural areas had in the past of cheap labour is gone. We used to have a lot of little factories in this area but they’ve gone to Mexico or China. In rural areas housing is cheap but everything else costs more. Utility rates are higher. Food and transport are higher. Management doesn’t want to live in rural areas. Education is horrible here. This is a third-world county. My kids grew up here until they were eight or nine, then they went to school in Louisville [a 145-mile drive away]. I wouldn’t send them to school here.”

Sadly, what has already happened in Appalachia is slowly happening to the rest of the country as well.  There is a chronic lack of good jobs, poverty is exploding, and more Americans than ever are giving into depression.

As economic conditions continue to deteriorate, people are starting to become more desperate.  In many large cities, crime rates are already up by double digit percentages in 2015, and the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is beginning to disappear.  For example, down in Tampa it is being reported that there is an epidemic of house squatting going on right now…

Crooks find empty houses all over Tampa Bay and make themselves at home. And now, 8 On Your Side uncovered training manuals on the internet. They teach how to get away with squatting.

The handbooks are brazen. A pamphlet for sale on Amazon for $61.20. An entry on Wiki-How entices tells squatters how to “take a whole house from someone if you’re willing to take the risk.”

It points out the best areas to squat and even advises to spruce up the home to throw off suspicious neighbors.

And a tragic incident that just happened in Indianapolis really touched my heart.  The following comes from ABC News

A family in Indianapolis was torn apart when Amanda Blackburn, 28, died after being shot in the head by a mystery gunman.

Her husband, Pastor Davey Blackburn, returned to their home from the gym Tuesday and found his home broken into and his wife on the ground, officials said.

She died Wednesday, 12 weeks pregnant.

The couple, who have a child, appeared to be madly in love, posting YouTube videos on the way to a “romantic getaway” in Chicago and Amanda even offering marriage advice: “You can lead your wife best, by just being a really, really good Godly example to her.”

Please pray for Pastor Davey.

I can’t even imagine the pain that he must be going through right now.

Meanwhile, there are more signs that this new economic downturn that we are experiencing is about to get even worse…

-Four large U.S. energy companies with combined debt of 4.8 billion dollars have been warned that they are all on the verge of totally collapsing and falling into bankruptcy.

-Unfortunately for all energy companies, the price of oil is not likely to go up significantly any time soon.  The amount of oil being stored offshore has approximately doubled from earlier this year, and more supertankers full of unsold oil are joining the party almost every day

While the crude oil tanker backlog in Houston reaches an almost unprecedented 39 (with combined capacity of 28.4 million barrels), as The FT reports that from China to the Gulf of Mexico, the growing flotilla of stationary supertankers is evidence that the oil price crash may still have further to run, as more than 100m barrels of crude oil and heavy fuels are being held on ships at sea (as the year-long supply glut fills up available storage on land).

-The amount of goods being shipped by rail, freight and air inside the United States continues to decline.  For the month of October, the Cass Shipping Index was down 5.3 percent on a year over year basis.

-And it also looks like a new housing crisis is beginning to emerge.  From September to October, the number of newly initiated foreclosures in the United States rose by 12 percent.

-Of course the elite understand what is happening, and they are working hard to get prepared.  According to Bloomberg, global central banks are buying up gold “at a near-record pace”…

Central banks and other institutions boosted gold purchases to the second-highest level on record in the quarter to September as countries including China and Russia sought to diversify their foreign-exchange reserves.

Net purchases were 175 metric tons, nearing the record 179.5 tons in the same quarter a year earlier, and up from 127.9 tons in the preceding three-month period, the World Gold Council said in a report on Thursday. Still, over the first nine months central banks’ net purchases dropped 6.7 percent to 425.8 tons, according to the council.

When you add these items to the list that I shared with you yesterday, a very disturbing picture begins to develop.

We are clearly heading into an extremely difficult economic period, and that means that the suffering in Appalachia and elsewhere in America is about to get even worse.

Vast Stretches Of Impoverished Appalachia Look Like They Have Been Through A War

West VirginiaIf you want to get an idea of where the rest of America is heading, just take a trip through the western half of West Virginia and the eastern half of Kentucky some time.  Once you leave the main highways, you will rapidly encounter poverty on a level that is absolutely staggering.  Overall, about 15 percent of the entire nation is under the poverty line, but in some areas of eastern Kentucky, more than 40 percent of the population is living in poverty.  Most of the people would work if they could.  Over the past couple of decades, locals have witnessed businesses and industries leave the region at a steady pace.  When another factory or business shuts down, many of the unemployed do not even realize that their jobs have been shipped overseas.  Coal mining still produces jobs that pay a decent wage, but Barack Obama is doing his very best to kill off that entire industry.  After decades of decline, vast stretches of impoverished Appalachia look like they have been through a war.  Those living in the area know that things are not good, but they just try to do the best that they can with what they have.

In previous articles about areas of the country that are economically depressed, I have typically focused on large cities such as Detroit or Camden, New Jersey.  But the economic suffering that is taking place in rural communities in the heartland of America is just as tragic.  We just don’t hear about it as much.

Most of those that live in the heart of Appalachia are really good “salt of the earth” people that just want to work hard and do what is right for their families.  But after decades of increasing poverty, the entire region has been transformed into an economic nightmare that never seems to end.  The following is a description of what life is like in Appalachia today that comes from a recent article by Kevin D. Williamson

Thinking about the future here and its bleak prospects is not much fun at all, so instead of too much black-minded introspection you have the pills and the dope, the morning beers, the endless scratch-off lotto cards, healing meetings up on the hill, the federally funded ritual of trading cases of food-stamp Pepsi for packs of Kentucky’s Best cigarettes and good old hard currency, tall piles of gas-station nachos, the occasional blast of meth, Narcotics Anonymous meetings, petty crime, the draw, the recreational making and surgical unmaking of teenaged mothers, and death: Life expectancies are short — the typical man here dies well over a decade earlier than does a man in Fairfax County, Va. — and they are getting shorter, women’s life expectancy having declined by nearly 1.1 percent from 1987 to 2007.

In these kinds of conditions, people do whatever they have to do just to survive.  With so much poverty around, serving those on food stamps has become an important part of the local economy.  In fact, cases of soda purchased with food stamps have become a form of “alternative currency” in the region.  In his article, Williamson described how this works…

It works like this: Once a month, the debit-card accounts of those receiving what we still call food stamps are credited with a few hundred dollars — about $500 for a family of four, on average — which are immediately converted into a unit of exchange, in this case cases of soda. On the day when accounts are credited, local establishments accepting EBT cards — and all across the Big White Ghetto, “We Accept Food Stamps” is the new E pluribus unum – are swamped with locals using their public benefits to buy cases and cases — reports put the number at 30 to 40 cases for some buyers — of soda. Those cases of soda then either go on to another retailer, who buys them at 50 cents on the dollar, in effect laundering those $500 in monthly benefits into $250 in cash — a considerably worse rate than your typical organized-crime money launderer offers — or else they go into the local black-market economy, where they can be used as currency in such ventures as the dealing of unauthorized prescription painkillers — by “pillbillies,” as they are known at the sympathetic establishments in Florida that do so much business with Kentucky and West Virginia that the relevant interstate bus service is nicknamed the “OxyContin Express.” A woman who is intimately familiar with the local drug economy suggests that the exchange rate between sexual favors and cases of pop — some dealers will accept either — is about 1:1, meaning that the value of a woman in the local prescription-drug economy is about $12.99 at Walmart prices.

I would encourage everyone to read the rest of Williamson’s excellent article.  You can find the entire article right here.

In Appalachia, the abuse of alcohol, meth and other legal and illegal drugs is significantly higher than in the U.S. population as a whole.  In a desperate attempt to deal with the pain of their lives, many people living in the region are looking for anything that will allow them to “escape” for a little while.  The following is an excerpt from an excellent article by Chris Hedges which describes what life is like in the little town of Gary, West Virginia at this point…

Joe and I are sitting in the Tug River Health Clinic in Gary with a registered nurse who does not want her name used. The clinic handles federal and state black lung applications. It runs a program for those addicted to prescription pills. It also handles what in the local vernacular is known as “the crazy check” — payments obtained for mental illness from Medicaid or SSI — a vital source of income for those whose five years of welfare payments have run out. Doctors willing to diagnose a patient as mentally ill are important to economic survival.

“They come in and want to be diagnosed as soon as they can for the crazy check,” the nurse says. “They will insist to us they are crazy. They will tell us, ‘I know I’m not right.’ People here are very resigned. They will avoid working by being diagnosed as crazy.”

The reliance on government checks, and a vast array of painkillers and opiates, has turned towns like Gary into modern opium dens. The painkillers OxyContin, fentanyl — 80 times stronger than morphine — Lortab, as well as a wide variety of anti-anxiety medications such as Xanax, are widely abused. Many top off their daily cocktail of painkillers at night with sleeping pills and muscle relaxants. And for fun, addicts, especially the young, hold “pharm parties,” in which they combine their pills in a bowl, scoop out handfuls of medication, swallow them, and wait to feel the result.

Of course this kind of thing is not just happening in the heart of Appalachia.  All over the country there are rural communities that are economically depressed.  In fact, according to the Wall Street Journal, economic activity in about half of the counties in the entire nation is still below pre-recession levels…

About half of the nation’s 3,069 county economies are still short of their prerecession economic output, reflecting the uneven economic recovery, according to a new report from the National Association of Counties.

So what are our “leaders” doing to fix this?

Well, they plan to ship millions more of our good jobs overseas.

Unfortunately, I am not kidding.

Republicans in the House of Representatives are introducing “fast track” trade promotion authority legislation that will pave the way for rapid approval of the secret trade treaty that Barack Obama has been negotiating.  The following is how I described this insidious treaty in a previous article

Did you know that the Obama administration is negotiating a super secret “trade agreement” that is so sensitive that he isn’t even allowing members of Congress to see it?  The Trans-Pacific Partnership is being called the “NAFTA of the Pacific” and “NAFTA on steroids”, but the truth is that it is so much more than just a trade agreement.  This treaty has 29 chapters, but only 5 of them have to do with trade.  Most Americans don’t realize this, but this treaty will fundamentally change our laws regarding Internet freedom, health care, the trading of derivatives, copyright issues, food safety, environmental standards, civil liberties and so much more.  It will also merge the United States far more deeply into the emerging one world economic system.

Once again, our politicians are betraying the American people and millions of jobs will be lost as a result.

Not that the economy needs another reason to go downhill.  The truth is that our economic foundations have already been rotting away for quite some time.

But now the ongoing economic collapse seems to be picking up steam again.  For example, the Baltic Dry Index (a very important indicator of global economic activity) is collapsing at a rate not seen since the great financial crash of 2008

Despite ‘blaming’ the drop in the cost of dry bulk shipping on Colombian coal restrictions, it seems increasingly clear that the 40% collapse in the Baltic Dry Index since the start of the year is more than just that. While this is the worst start to a year in over 30 years, the scale of this meltdown is only matched by the total devastation that occurred in Q3 2008. Of course, the mainstream media will continue to ignore this dour index until it decides to rise once again, but for now, 9 days in a row of plunging prices is yet another canary in the global trade coalmine and suggests what inventory stacking that occurred in Q3/4 2013 is anything but sustained.

Soon economic conditions will get even worse for Appalachia and for the rest of the country.  The consequences of decades of very foolish decisions are rapidly catching up with us, and millions upon millions of Americans are going to experience immense economic pain during the years to come.

So what are things like in your area of the country right now?  Please feel free to share your thoughts by posting a comment below…

West Virginia