Medical

Scientists Warn That The Countdown To The Extinction of The Human Race Is Accelerating

Humanity is steamrolling toward a date with extinction, and yet most people have absolutely no idea that this is happening.  Most of us like to think that we are part of the smartest, tallest and fastest generation in human history, but science has actually shown that the exact opposite is true.  Compared to our ancient ancestors, we are shorter, slower and we have been losing mental capacity for thousands of years.  And just this week, a groundbreaking study that discovered that large numbers of human males in the western world may soon be incapable of reproducing made headlines all over the planet…

Humans could become extinct if sperm counts in men from North America, Europe and Australia continue to fall at current rates, a doctor has warned.

Researchers assessing the results of nearly 200 separate studies say sperm counts among men from these areas seem to have halved in less than 40 years.

The 185 studies that the researchers took their data from were all conducted between 1973 and 2011.  Dr. Hagai Levine was one of the lead scientists involved in the study, and he found that for men in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, sperm concentrations declined by 52.4 percent during the study period, and total sperm count declined by a whopping 59.3 percent.

If these trends continue, we will soon have tens of millions of young men that are incapable of producing children.  The following comes from the Washington Post…

The most important data points in the new study involved sperm concentrations for what are known as “unselected” men who haven’t yet proven they are fertile. These are men in the studies who are on the younger side and are not yet fathers or do not have partners who are pregnant. Researchers estimated that these men had an average sperm concentration of 99 million per milliliter in 1973 but that that had dropped to an average 47 million per milliliter in 2011.

That is a disturbing number given that, according to World Health Organization criteria, men with a sperm concentration of less than 40 million are considered to have an impaired chance of conceiving and those with a sperm concentration of less than 15 million per milliliter are unlikely to be able to have children.

If that sounds extremely serious to you, that is because it is extremely serious.

According to Dr. Levine, we could potentially be looking at “the extinction of the human species” in the not too distant future…

“If we will not change the ways that we are living and the environment and the chemicals that we are exposed to, I am very worried about what will happen in the future,” he said.

“Eventually we may have a problem, and with reproduction in general, and it may be the extinction of the human species.”

So what is causing this alarming drop in sperm levels?

There are certainly lots of factors involved, but one study from a few years ago pointed much of the blame at our heavy use of cellphones…

The new study shows that having a mobile phone close to the testicles – or within a foot or two of the body – can lower sperm levels so much that conceiving could be difficult.

The findings have led to a leading British fertility expert to advise men to stop being addicted to mobile phones.

Professor Martha Dirnfeld, of the Technion University in Haifa, said: “We analysed the amount of active swimming sperm and the quality and found that it had been reduced.

“We think this is being caused by a heating of the sperm from the phone and by electromagnetic activity.”

And of course where do most men carry their phones?

Most of us carry them in our pockets, and that is about the worst possible place that we could carry them.

But even if sperm counts were not dropping so precipitously, humanity would still be facing rapid extinction due to a phenomenon known as “mutational meltdown”.  Below is an excerpt from a study that was originally published by Gerald H. McKibben and Everett C. McKibben, and I have shared this previously, but since I am talking about the possibility of human extinction in the not too distant future in this article I wanted to share it again…

Geneticists have long worried about the impact of mutations on the human population, and that at a rate of one deleterious mutation per person per generation, genetic deterioration would result. Earlier reports were based on estimates of mutation rates considerable lower than what we now know to be the case. Findings going back to 2002 show that the human mutation rate is at least 100 mistakes (misspellings) per person per generation. Some scientists believe the rate is closer to 300.

Even a rate of 100 has profound implications, and the mutation rate is itself increasing. Furthermore, most, if not all, mutations in the human genome must be deleterious.  “And nothing can reverse the damage that has been done during our own generation, even if further mutations could be stopped.”  It would appear that the process is an irreversible downward spiral that will end in “mutational meltdown”.

Let me try to break this down very simply so that everyone can understand.

DNA mutations are passed from one generation to another, and each generation has more mutations than the previous generation.

This process appears to be accelerating, and at some undetermined point in the future human DNA will become so corrupt that the human race simply will not be able to continue.

In other words, the human race is wearing out, and the clock is ticking down to the eventual extinction of our race.

So even if we don’t kill ourselves off, which we are certainly more than capable of doing, the truth is that normal processes will eventually wipe all of us out anyway.

I know that this may sound very negative, but if you know the rest of the story it actually isn’t.

Our lives are just like the flowers of the field.  They are here today and they are gone tomorrow, but what we do with them will echo for all of eternity.

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.

Every RINO Needs To Go

It looks like the effort to repeal Obamacare is completely dead, and that says a lot about the current state of the Republican Party.  For decades, RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) have been using labels such as “Republican”, “conservative”, “pro-gun” and “pro-life” to get elected, but then once they get into office they govern like Democrats.  There was so much hope when Donald Trump won the election last November, but thanks to the RINOs in Congress not much has actually been accomplished so far.  In fact, this is being called “the most unproductive Congress in 164 years”.  The following is an excerpt from an article published by The Week…

Just six months ago, it looked like the Republican Party was about to go on a legislative blitzkrieg, shredding law after law passed by the Obama administration. ObamaCare would be vaporized and replaced with a nickel rattling inside an empty Mountain Dew can. Dodd-Frank was sure to be tossed aside for a transparent giveaway to Wall Street. And Republicans would pass their regressive tax reform, their perplexing border-adjustment tax, and so much more. The GOP hadn’t held total power in American politics since 2006, and the party had become much more conservative in the interim.

Most of us were anticipating that so much would get done over the past 6 months, but instead we have seen nothing but gridlock.

The most recent example of this has been the Obamacare debacle.  After failing to push through “Obamacare 2.0”, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided that he would switch gears and try to get a clean Obamacare repeal bill through the Senate, but unfortunately that effort has already failed…

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s sudden move to try to repeal Obamacare without a replacement plan appeared doomed Tuesday as at least three moderate Republicans rejected the idea.

Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said they will not support a motion to proceed to the bill, which would repeal Obamacare in two years. Without their support, McConnell cannot get the 50 votes he needs to pass a repeal bill.

Collins, Capito and Murkowski are perfect examples of what I am talking about when I use the term “RINOs”.  They are essentially Democrats, but they have been able to successfully use the Republican label to get elected.

Unless we are able to start kicking the RINOs out of Congress, most of Trump’s agenda is going to go nowhere.

Obviously Trump is not happy about what has transpired in the Senate, and now his plan is to basically sit back and let Obamacare fail…

Now his plan is to “let Obamacare fail; it will be a lot easier,” he said. “And I think we’re probably in that position where we’ll just let Obamacare fail.”

“We’re not going to own it. I’m not going to own it,” the president said. “I can tell you the Republicans are not going to own it. We’ll let Obamacare fail, and then the Democrats are going to come to us.”

But will the Democrats come to the Republicans ready to compromise as Obamacare comes apart at the seams?

I seriously doubt it.

I think that they are convinced that they can successfully point the blame at the Republicans as our health care system continues to deteriorate.

Personally, I believe that the more the federal government gets involved in health care the worse it is going to get.

Unfortunately, once you establish a program that gives out free goodies to people it is hard to take that back.  For RINOs such as Collins, Capito and Murkowski, one of the biggest obstacles to repealing Obamacare is that it would roll back the Medicaid program to pre-Obamacare levels.

Today, more than 74 million Americans are on Medicaid and CHIP, and more than  58 million Americans are on Medicare.  That means that more than 130 million Americans are enrolled in these government programs at this point.

That is nearly half the country.

Of course many Democrats would like to go all the way and put everyone in such programs, but then we would have a completely socialized health care system.

The big problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.  Everybody likes free stuff, but somebody has to pay for all of that free stuff somewhere along the line.

And if people are forced to expend time and effort in order to get their free stuff, interest in the free stuff drops substantially.  In Alabama, food stamp enrollment plunged dramatically once work requirements were re-instituted…

Alabama began 2017 by requiring able-bodied adults without children in 13 counties to either find a job or participate in work training as a condition for continuing to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

According to AL.com, the number of those recipients declined from 5,538 to 831 between Jan. 1 and the beginning of May – an 85 percent drop.

Similar changes were implemented in select counties in Georgia and by the end of the first three months, the number of adults receiving benefits in three participating counties dropped 58 percent, according to the Georgia Public Policy Foundation.

In my brand new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters”, I open up about why I want to run for Congress.  For way too long we have had a federal government that has just gotten bigger and bigger and bigger.  We need to swing the pendulum way back in the other direction, and we need to educate people on the benefits of having a very limited central government.

If you take the shackles off, the free market system works incredibly well.  And once upon a time, the United States actually had a free market health care system and it was the best on the entire planet.

We can get there again, but first we need to get rid of the RINOs in Congress and replace them with people that deeply believe in true conservative values.

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.

The Way Congress Is Handling Health Care Shows Why They Only Have A 17 Percent Approval Rating

The Senate health care bill was unveiled on Thursday, and it appears to be dead on arrival.  At least four conservative senators say that they can’t vote for the current version because it doesn’t go far enough, while several moderate Republicans are expressing concerns that it goes too far in repealing popular Obamacare provisions.  You can read the full text of the bill here.  Since Democrats are going to be united in voting against any bill that the Republicans put forward, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell can only lose two Republican votes if he wants something to pass.  I don’t know how that is going to be possible, and so in the end we may be stuck with Obamacare for the foreseeable future and that would be a total disaster.

It is astounding to me that Republicans don’t want to pass the exact same clean Obamacare repeal bill that they got to Obama’s desk in 2016.  If they got that same bill to Trump’s desk, he would sign it.  Instead of trying to do everything at once, just repeal Obamacare and then start working on various pieces of the health care system one at a time.

According to Real Clear Politics, Congress currently has an average approval rating of just 17.6 percent.  It is an institution that has failed the American people over and over again, and we are never going to move things in a positive direction in this country until we do something to clean up that cesspool of filth and corruption.

If we truly want to fix health care in this country, we need to rebuild the entire system from the ground up based on free market principles.  But of course the bill that was just unveiled in the Senate simply tries to patch up the system we already have, and that ultimately won’t work…

The bill is very similar to the version of the House bill that passed last month but with some key changes. The text released Thursday showed the Senate legislation would still make major changes to the nation’s health care system, repealing Obamacare’s individual mandate, drastically cutting back federal support of Medicaid, eliminating Obamacare’s taxes on the wealthy, insurers and others. The Senate plan however would keep Obamacare’s subsidies to help people pay for individual coverage.

One thing that is good about the Senate bill is that it would eliminate Medicaid reimbursements for Planned Parenthood for 12 months, but of course this is something that would need to be made permanent as soon as possible.

A more detailed list of major changes that the Senate bill makes was posted on Zero Hedge…

  • Gives subsidies illegal immigrants if they are working in the United States
  • Subsidies based on 350% Federal Poverty Level, not 400%.
  • Gets rid of business and consumer mandates with no penalty
  • Qualified plans don’t need to provide abortion coverage unless it’s to save the life of the mother
  • Each state gets 15-10 Billion for uninsurables
  • Cadillac tax is gone
  • OTC med tax is gone
  • HSA penalty tax is 10%
  • Prescription tax is gone
  • Medical device tax is gone
  • Business owners can deduct part d expense again
  • Deductible medical expenses are back to 7.5% instead of 10% AGI
  • Tanning tax is gone (ironic)
  • Net investment tax is gone
  • HSA deductibility will be adjusted every year for COLA
  • Both spouses can now make catch-up contributions to a family HSA
  • 60 day limitation to setting up an HSA account when first getting the plan for purposes of a current claim
  • No coverage for abortion clinics
  • Repeal of cost-sharing subsidy
  • MLR set by states
  • Grants for states battling opiod addiction (like mine)
  • CHIP is reauthorized
  • $5,000 app fee to create small business association health pool
  • Psychiatric coverage is limited to institutionalized individuals only, and for stays up to 30 days but not to exceed 90 days
  • The Senate draft health-care bill doesn’t currently include a provision penalizing people who don’t maintain continuous coverage

Overall, the Senate bill would be a bit of an improvement over Obamacare.

But a slight improvement over a major disaster is still a disaster.

Shortly after the bill was unveiled, four conservative senators announced that they cannot vote for the bill the way that it stands now…

However, four conservative Republican senators —Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Mike Lee of Utah— said they “are not ready to vote for this bill” because it does not go far enough in repealing Obamacare. Separately, moderate GOP Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada said he has “serious concerns” about the bill’s impact on Medicaid patients.

“Currently, for a variety of reasons, we are not ready to vote for this bill, but we are open to negotiation and obtaining more information before it is brought to the floor,” Paul, Cruz, Johnson and Lee said in a joint statement. “There are provisions in this draft that represent an improvement to our current health care system, but it does not appear this draft as written will accomplish the most important promise that we made to Americans: to repeal Obamacare and lower their health care costs.”

On the other end of the spectrum, a couple of RINO (Republican in name only) senators are expected to object to the bill because it would reduce funding for Planned Parenthood…

The Senate bill would cut Medicaid funds from organizations that provide abortions for one year. It does not mention Planned Parenthood by name, but the legislation is clearly targeting the organization, which Republican leaders have promised to defund.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, have both expressed concerns about any legislation that defunds Planned Parenthood. Murkowski said Thursday she was still reviewing the bill’s provisions.

President Trump says that the Senate bill is not a finished product and that it is open for negotiation.

But I don’t see how in the world anyone is going to be able to craft something that will be acceptable to at least 50 Republicans in the Senate.

Unfortunately, even if the Republicans pass a health care bill somehow it will not fix the giant mess that our system has become.

One step in the right direction would be to legalize the kind of national buying groups that Rand Paul has proposed…

Imagine if the tens of millions of people who belong to Credit Unions, or organizations like the NRA or ACLU, could negotiate as a group for health insurance and drug prices!  Imagine the insurance executives and drug companies coming on bended knee to negotiate for the business of tens of millions of people!

I have proposed legalizing nationwide Association Health Plans.  My Senate Bill 222 does just that.  I have advised the President to act through his Secretary of Labor to review existing law and make it explicitly known that national associations can negotiate as one to bring down insurance prices.

And I would also like to see an expansion of direct primary care and other models that bypass the health insurance companies entirely.

The health insurance companies collectively make a profit of 15 billion dollars a year, and they are a big part of what is wrong with our current system.

There is so much that needs to be done to fix things, and both parties are failing the American people.

So let’s hope that we can remove a lot of these incumbents in 2018, because we definitely need some fresh thinking in Washington.

Are The ‘Toxic’ Democrats Destined To Become A Permanent Minority Party?

It has become exceedingly clear that the Democratic Party is in deep trouble.  Close to 55 million dollars was spent on the race in Georgia’s sixth congressional district, and that shattered all kinds of records.  Democrat Jon Ossoff was able to raise and spend six times as much money as Karen Handel and yet he still lost.  This was supposed to be the race that would show the American people that the Democrats could take back control of Congress in 2018, and so for the Democrats this was a bitter failure.  The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee actually injected almost 5 million dollars into the race themselves, and Planned Parenthood threw in another $700,000.  But after all of the time, effort and energy that was expended, Handel still won fairly comfortably.

The Democrats are trying to spin this result as some sort of “moral victory”, but as Dan Balz of the Washington Post has pointed out, there are “no moral victories in politics”…

There are no moral victories in politics. Republicans won on Tuesday in the most important special election this year. Democrats lost, as they have done in the other special elections in GOP-held seats this year.

For the national Democratic Party, the debate continues about developing a message that goes beyond attacking Trump, or assuming dissatisfaction with the president will be enough.

It has been a very long time since there has been so much national attention on a single House race.  A number of high profile Hollywood celebrities became personally involved in Ossoff’s campaign, and they were absolutely devastated when he lost…

Celebrities who donated time and money to Ossoff’s campaign, including actresses Alyssa Milano and Rosie O’Donnell, used their social media accounts to react to the Democrat’s loss shortly after the election results were confirmed late Tuesday night.

Milano, who personally drove voters to the polls in April’s preliminary election and was actively campaigning for the Democrat for most of Election Day, tweeted simply: “Grouphug” and “Get in.”

Meanwhile, electronic music producer Moby and vocal Trump critic O’Donnell appeared to be frustrated by the results, with Moby questioning how Democratic “still can’t win” even with “buffoon” Donald Trump in the White House. O’Donnell tweeted: “DONALD TRUMP IS THE DARKNESS ITSELF.”

Where does the Democratic Party go from here?

Their anti-Trump message is not working, and their usual divide and conquer tactics are not working either.

At this point either the Democratic Party is going to have to reinvent itself, or they could be facing a long, painful string of election defeats for the foreseeable future.  To say that things have not been going well for the Democrats lately would be a major understatement.  I really like what Rush Limbaugh had to say about this on his radio show…

“You have no idea the degree to which the media and the Democratic Party are destroyed today. I’m talking about how they feel … which is complete and utter defeat, frustration and devastation,” he said on Wednesday, hours after Republican Karen Handel was a multiple percentage point winner over defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff.

“The dirty little secret is the media and the Democratic Party is turning off average Americans. They are not persuading, they are not convincing people Trump is a reprobate,” he continued. “They do not know how to beat Donald Trump. There are depressed and despondent.”

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why Jon Ossoff lost.

All of the anger and violence that we have seen lately has greatly tainted the Democratic Party.

The Democrats have become the party of Kathy Griffin.

The Democrats have become the party of Antifa and mock Trump assassinations.

And the Democrats have become the party of James Hodgkinson.

U.S. Representative Tim Ryan was right on the ball when he admitted that his party’s brand has now become “toxic” in much of the nation…

Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, who tried to unseat Ms. Pelosi as House minority leader late last fall, said she remained a political millstone for Democrats. But Mr. Ryan said the Democratic brand had also become “toxic” in much of the country because voters saw Democrats as “not being able to connect with the issues they care about.”

“Our brand is worse than Trump,” he said.

As I have discussed repeatedly, the left doesn’t have any positive vision for the future to offer the American people.  They cannot win in the marketplace of ideas, and so they use anger, frustration, intimidation and violence as weapons.  For quite a while the Democrats successfully used “the blame game” and divide and conquer tactics to win elections, but now the American people are seeing through the charade.

The more angry and violent the left becomes, the more the American people are going to turn against them.  The following comes from Daniel Greenfield…

But Trump Derangement Syndrome is a symptom of a problem with the left that existed before he was born. The left is an angry movement. It is animated by an outraged self-righteousness whose moral superiority doubles as dehumanization. And its machinery of culture glamorizes its anger. The media dresses up the seething rage so that the left never has to look at its inner Hodgkinson in the mirror.

The left is as angry as ever. Campus riots and assassinations of Republican politicians are nothing new. What is changing is that its opponents are beginning to match its anger.  The left still clings to the same anger it had when it was a theoretical movement with plans, but little impact on the country. The outrage at the left is no longer ideological. There are millions of people whose health care was destroyed by ObamaCare, whose First Amendment rights were taken away, whose land was seized, whose children were turned against them and whose livelihoods were destroyed.

Of course it is quite true that the Republican Party needs to be cleaned up as well.  Many establishment Republicans use labels such as “conservative” and “Pro-Life” to win elections, but then they end up government like Democrats.  And so many members of Congress in both parties spend far more time and energy raising money for their next elections than they do serving the American people.

There is a reason why Congress only has a 17.6 percent approval rating at the moment.  Both major parties should take that as a sign that they need to clean up their acts, because the American people are sick and tired of the status quo.

The Best Thing That Trump Has Done So Far

On Thursday, the U.S. House of Representatives finally approved a bill that would repeal and replace significant portions of the law that created Obamacare.  But it was a very close vote.  On Donald Trump’s 105th day in the White House, 217 members of the House voted in favor of the bill, and 213 members of the House voted against the bill.  Of course “Trumpcare” is far from perfect, and it actually does very little to fix our rapidly failing healthcare system, but the reason why this is the best thing that Trump has done so far is because this bill would greatly reduce federal funding for Planned Parenthood.  But first this bill must get through the Senate before it can become law, and that is looking extremely doubtful at this point.  In fact, The Hill is reporting that one Republican Senator has said that this bill has less than a 20 percent chance of succeeding in the Senate…

A senior GOP senator said the chances of getting 51 votes for legislation based on the House healthcare bill are less than 1 in 5.

The senator also put the chances that the House bill will meet Senate budgetary rules preventing a filibuster at less than 1 in 5, meaning portions of the legislation would have to be removed.

Lawmakers are keeping quiet about their concerns because they want to help Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), whose job they fear may be in jeopardy if the House fails again to approve an ObamaCare repeal bill.

Yes, I know that Trump and the Republicans in the House were greatly celebrating on Thursday, but there really isn’t anything to celebrate yet.

The Senate is probably going to come up with an entirely different version of this legislation, and it is likely to look far different from the bill that just passed the House.

If a bill of some sort can actually get through the Senate, and that is a huge “if”, then an attempt would be made to reconcile the differences between the two bills, and then the final version would be submitted to both the House and the Senate for an up or down vote.

The problem is that the Senate is not going to pass anything like the version that the House just came up with, and conservatives in the House are likely to balk at anything that the Senate comes up with.

So please don’t think that an Obamacare repeal is a done deal.

The truth is that it probably is not going to happen any time soon.

But for the moment, I am going to applaud President Trump and House Republicans for doing something right.  I have been very tough on them in recent weeks, and rightly so, but when they do something good I am certainly going to give them the praise that they are due.

The bill that the House just passed would greatly reduce federal funding for Planned Parenthood, and that fact alone more than makes up for all of the other flaws in it.  The following comes from CNS News…

The American Health Care Act—the Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill that the House of Representatives passed by a 217-to-213 vote this afternoon–will temporarily and significantly reduce, but not eliminate, federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

The bill will prevent Planned Parenthood from receiving funding through “mandatory” federal funding streams—primarily Medicaid—for exactly one calendar year after the president signs it.

But it does not prevent Planned Parenthood from getting “discretionary” funding through the Title X family planning program.

It is just for one year, which is far from ideal, but at least for 12 months Planned Parenthood would see their funding go down by hundreds of millions of dollars…

The pro-life bill would eliminate more than $390 million (over 86%) of over $450 million in annual federal funding to Planned Parenthood, from all mandatory spending programs. The measure also redirects funding to community health centers which outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities 20 to 1 and offer a wider array of health care services, but not abortion.

Of course this is one of the provisions in the bill that some Republicans in the Senate want to eliminate.

It is extremely unlikely that any bill that even defunds Planned Parenthood in part will ever get through the Senate, but Trump should make an all-out effort to get this accomplished anyway.

And if Republican leadership can somehow get a bill through the Senate and signed into law that at least significantly reduces federal funding for Planned Parenthood, I will officially take back all of the negative things that I have said about the Republicans so far this year.

This week President Trump also signed a landmark executive order that does a great deal to protect religious liberty…

The order, signed during a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden, directs the Internal Revenue Service to exercise “maximum enforcement discretion” over the so-called Johnson amendment, which prevents churches and other tax-exempt religious organizations from endorsing or opposing political candidates. The order also provides “regulatory relief” for organizations that object on religious grounds to a provision in Obamacare that mandates employers provide certain health services, including coverage for contraception.

All Americans, including Christians, should be free to express their political beliefs without fearing repercussions from the federal government.  The Johnson Amendment was probably always unconstitutional, and that is one of the reasons why it has never really been enforced.  Congress should go even farther and completely repeal it, and hopefully that will happen someday.

So once again I want to take this opportunity to applaud Trump for doing something right.  This is a good executive order, although it doesn’t quite go far enough.  A major war against people of faith is being waged by very powerful forces in this country, and I am thankful for a president that is at least trying to keep some of the heat off of our backs.

I tend to get criticized by both the pro-Trump and anti-Trump camps because I try to be objective.

When our politicians do things that are wrong, I am going to say that they are wrong.

And when our politicians do things that are right, I am going to say that they are right.

We lose credibility when we act as cheerleaders for politicians that are “on our side” no matter what they say or do.

In our society today, there is a desperate need for people that are willing to think critically and that are willing to cling objectively to the truth.

Because once we let go of the truth we are all in trouble…

I Feel Sick, Because The U.S. Is On The Verge Of Making An Extremely Costly Mistake

All day long I have just felt sick.  Right at this moment, we are closer to war with North Korea than we have been at any point since the Korean War ended in 1953.  If Donald Trump decides to launch a military strike against North Korea’s nuclear facilities, the consequences could be absolutely catastrophic.  The North Koreans have already promised to launch nukes at South Korea and at U.S. military bases in the region in return, and they also have vast stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons that they could use as well.  To get an idea of the chaos that just a handful of North Korean agents armed with biological weapons could unleash inside the United States, just see this article.  A military strike on North Korea could be the spark that sets off a global war in which millions of people die, and so we need to do all that we can to prevent this from happening.  My hope is that if people make enough noise that Trump will back down and decide not to attack.

Earlier today, I was sent the following piece of intel.  I was told that I could share it with all of my readers as long as I kept the name of the individual that sent it to me out of it.  According to this source, it certainly looks as though an attack is being prepared…

An O-5 silver maple leaf Air Force puke says the bomb buses in Guam are maximum loaded, fully fueled and reserves are topped off.  ‎ Reserves are only topped off just before the buses go airborne.

Kunsan has everything pointed north and ALL gates are closed…no traffic in or out.

7 air wings have been moved into the area and an augmented Carl Vinson CVN-70 (not alone) (per CMC x 2  and an O-5) has also moved into the area.

An O-5 barker and an O-6 Marine says all Easter leave has been cancelled with ALL‎ loaded up, geared up and warming up in several theaters.

Castle is locked and loaded.

Seoul is moving essential government and military personnel, as is true for U.S. Command Components and Personnel located at Yongsan‎, further south to Daegu.

AND…Red Cloud is ready to go on the war path with nobody sleeping in the wigwams, all the arrows have been taken from the box.

For those that don’t know, “Kunsan” refers to a U.S. Air Force base that is located at Gunsan Airport on the west coast of the Korean peninsula.

But just because these preparations are being made does not mean that a strike will actually happen.  In fact, there are some signs that indicate that we will not see a U.S. attack over the next several days.

For one thing, Vice President Mike Pence is scheduled to be in South Korea on Sunday and Monday.  So it would seem that it would be quite unlikely that anything would happen during that time.

In addition, Fox News is reporting that the Trump administration has come to the conclusion that military force should not be used against North Korea…

But a U.S. military official, who requested anonymity to discuss planning, said the U.S. doesn’t intend to use military force against North Korea in response to either a nuclear test or a missile launch. The official said plans could change in the unlikely event a North Korean missile targets South Korea, Japan or U.S. territory.

But of course things seem to shift hour to hour with the Trump administration.  On Thursday, NBC News was reporting that the U.S. military was poised “to launch a preemptive strike with conventional weapons against North Korea” if it looked like the North Koreans were about to conduct a nuclear weapons test…

The U.S. is prepared to launch a preemptive strike with conventional weapons against North Korea should officials become convinced that North Korea is about to follow through with a nuclear weapons test, multiple senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.

North Korea has warned that a “big event” is near, and U.S. officials say signs point to a nuclear test that could come as early as this weekend.

So I don’t know what is going to happen.  But without a doubt we are very close to war with North Korea at this moment, and I am going to join with millions of others to do whatever we can to prevent that from happening.

A war with North Korea would be far different from the wars that the U.S. military has been fighting in the Middle East.  An ideology known as “Juche” is essentially the national religion of North Korea.  In Juche, the people are put at the center of everything, and “the leader” is considered to be at the center of the people.  In other words, “the leader” is almost put at the level of a deity.

It is a very sick and twisted philosophy, but here in the western world we need to understand that when we openly talk about killing Kim Jong-Un on television and on the Internet, we are essentially threatening to kill their “god”.

And the reason that is a problem is because Kim Jong-Un is surrounded by throngs of brainwashed supporters that will carry out any order that he gives them.

Here in the western world, we consider it to be highly immoral to use chemical and biological weapons against innocent civilian populations, but the North Koreans do not share those moral values.

The North Koreans consider the United States to be the great force for evil in the world, and if they feel like their way of life is being threatened by the U.S. they will not hesitate to use those sorts of weapons.

And of course they are constantly threatening to use nuclear weapons against us.  Just today I saw a report that talked about how the North Koreans are threatening to unleash “nuclear thunderbolts”, and in another report the North Koreans were quoted as saying they would “ruthlessly ravage” the United States if they are attacked…

North Korea upped its warmongering with Donald Trump today in a series of menacing boasts threatening to ‘ravage’ US troops amid fears the two countries are heading for war.

The secretive state vowed to ‘pulverize’ US bases and South Korean capital Seoul if it was threatened by the US military, which is carrying out drills on the Korean peninsula. A US aircraft carrier group is steaming towards the region.

It claimed it would ‘ruthlessly ravage’ the US if Washington attacked.

North Korea is one of the most wicked nations on the entire planet, and I would certainly greatly rejoice if their government were to fall.

But I don’t see any way that a military strike on North Korea would be successful.

If the North Koreans were able to fire even a single nuclear or chemical warhead at a major city such as Seoul or Tokyo it would be the worst foreign policy disaster in the history of the United States.  The North Koreans would certainly be blamed, but the Trump administration would also be blamed for conducting such a reckless attack in the first place.  Our relationships with our allies in the region would be permanently destroyed, and this would benefit China greatly.

Without using nukes in an overwhelming first strike (which would be unthinkable), I don’t believe that there is any possible way that we could take out all of North Korea’s nukes before they had a chance to at least fire some of them off.

And if North Korea did nuke Seoul or Tokyo or any U.S. military bases in the region, we would almost be forced to respond with nukes of our own, and that would have to be followed up by a massive ground invasion to topple the regime.

So if Donald Trump is reading this, for the good of humanity I would like to strongly urge him not to conduct a military strike on North Korea at this time.  The risk is just way too great, and if things go wrong we could easily be looking at a scenario in which millions of people end up dead.

Trump Prepares ‘Military Response’ For Syria As Tillerson Works To Form A ‘Coalition’ To Remove Assad From Power

It makes me physically ill when I think that the U.S. could be on the verge of starting a disastrous war in the Middle East that will not benefit us in any way, shape or form.  I can’t believe this is happening, and a lot of other people apparently can’t either.  In fact, there were some that heavily criticized me when I suggested that Donald Trump had just committed to taking military action in Syria in part 1 and part 2 of this series of articles.  But less than 24 hours later, the front page of USA Today was running this jarring headline: “Trump team developing military response in Syria”.  It is interesting to note that this came on the 77th day of Trump’s presidency, and on Thursday it was also revealed that the Trump administration is working to put together an international coalition to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power.  The following comes from Fox News…

America’s top diplomat addressed the Syria crisis a day after Trump declared in the Rose Garden that the chemical strike would not be tolerated. Tillerson pointedly said Russia should “consider carefully” its support for the Assad regime, while calling for an international effort to defeat ISIS in Syria, stabilize the country and ultimately work with partners through a political process that leads to Assad leaving power.

Asked if the U.S. would organize a coalition to remove Assad, Tillerson said: “Those steps are underway.”

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also told the press that Assad has “no role” in governing Syria in the future, and he pledged there there will be a “serious response” to the recent chemical attack in Syria’s Idlib province.

Of course it is extremely doubtful that Assad had anything to do with that chemical attack, and I am going to share some more of that evidence with you in part 4 of this series.

In terms of what that “serious response” will look like, a lot will be determined over the next 48 hours as Trump consults with his top national security advisers…

Defense Secretary James Mattis will brief President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on military options against Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s regime later on Thursday in the wake of a deadly attack which activists said killed at least 100 people — including 25 children — and injured at least 400 others earlier this week.

The White House and Pentagon have had detailed back-and-forth conversations over the past two days over options including a National Security Council meeting Wednesday. Mattis and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster have had repeated contact about the best way forward, a U.S. official told NBC News.

It is being reported that airstrikes and the use of cruise missiles against Syrian targets are among the initial options under consideration.

If Trump drops a few bombs or fires of a few cruise missiles that likely wouldn’t spark a broader conflict, but there is one option that is reportedly being considered that could bring us into direct military conflict with Russia.  According to The Intercept, the Trump team is actually considering a “saturation strike” which would result “in Russian military deaths”…

The proposed strike would involve launching Tomahawk cruise missiles to overwhelm Russian air defense systems used by the Syrian military. The Russian government currently helps maintain the air defense sites and advises the Syrian military.

According to both U.S. military officials, the current proposal would likely result in Russian military deaths and mark a drastic escalation of U.S. force in Syria.

One U.S. military official said the decision to allow the strikes, which would kill Russians, signals a significant change in policy by the Trump administration. A decision by Trump to go forward with the plan would be a reversal from the Obama administration, which denied multiple air strike proposals that would likely cause Russian personnel casualties in Syria.

If that happens, any hope for improved relations with Russia will be permanently extinguished and it could easily result in the Russians shooting back at us.

The Russians have S-300 and S-400 air defense systems already in place in Syria.  Both of those systems are some of the most advanced in the world and are a significant threat to U.S. warplanes.

As I discussed yesterday, it is not difficult to imagine what would happen if footage of U.S. aircraft being blown out of the sky by Russian missiles started rolling on our cable news channels 24 hours a day.

Even now, U.S. Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham are urging President Trump to consider “the grounding of Assad’s air force”…

“In addition to other measures, the United States should lead an international coalition to ground Assad’s air force. This capability provides Assad a strategic advantage in his brutal slaughter of innocent civilians, both through the use of chemical weapons as well as barrel bombs, which kill far more men, women and children on a daily basis … Ultimately, the grounding of Assad’s air force can and should be part of a new comprehensive strategy to end the conflict in Syria.”

Of course if Trump goes to war with another sovereign nation without the approval of Congress that would be a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution, and that is something else that I would be talking about in part 4 of this series.

Even though I am writing about all of this, I still have a hard time believing that this is all happening less than three months into Trump’s presidency.  The stage is being set for the kind of scenario that I outlined in The Beginning Of The End, and right now I am far more alarmed by the state of world events than I was at any point in 2016.

I am particularly disturbed by all of this talk about removing Assad.

How in the world does the Trump administration plan to do that?

Even if they conduct a massive bombing campaign that would turn Damascus into a “ruinous heap”, that would still not guarantee regime change.

The only thing that would guarantee regime change is a full-scale ground invasion and the conquest of the entire city of Damascus.

Of course the Russians, the Iranians and Hezbollah would not willingly step aside and let “coalition forces” march to Damascus, and so such a move could very easily spark World War 3 in the Middle East.

I can’t believe that Trump is actually thinking of going to war with Syria.  There is nothing to be gained and so much that could be lost.  Let us hope that someone can talk some sense to him while there is still time to do so.

Broken America

Is this the beginning of the end for the United States of America?  It has been said that a house divided against itself will surely fall, and today we live in a shattered union.  In all my years, I have never seen so much strife, discord, bitterness and resentment in this country.  Everyone can see what is happening, but nobody can seem to stop it.  Politically, you have got tens of millions of people trying to pull America one way, and you have got tens of millions of people trying to pull it the exact opposite way.  As I discussed in a previous article, the term “civil war” is now being thrown around by some pundits even though nobody has started shooting yet.  We are a deeply divided and broken nation, and if we don’t find a way to fix things America will not survive.

Every survey and opinion poll that has been taken recently backs up what I am saying.  For example, a Gallup survey that was conducted after the election in November found that an all-time record high 77 percent of all Americans believe that “the nation is divided on the most important values”…

Seventy-seven percent of Americans, a new high, believe the nation is divided on the most important values, while 21% believe it is united and in agreement. Over the past 20+ years, the public has tended to perceive the nation as being more divided than united, apart from two surveys conducted shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

So how do you fix this?

Nobody can force half the population to suddenly change their views on the most important issues of the day.

Earlier today, I wrote an article about how America is becoming a “politically-correct madhouse“, and there really is no compromising with the forces of political correctness.  Either you get in line or you are the enemy.

Once upon a time the values enshrined in the U.S. Constitution by our founders united us, but today about half the country has completely rejected those values.

Those that would like to restore our constitutional values find themselves diametrically opposed to the agenda that progressives are trying to shove down our throats, and personally I don’t see much room for compromise between the two sides.

Given enough time, one side would ultimately vanquish the other side, but I don’t know if America has enough time left for that to happen.

There were some that had been hoping that our new president would unite the country, but you can throw that idea right out the window.  According to numbers from Public Policy Polling, nearly half the nation already wants him to be impeached…

On our first poll of his Presidency voters were evenly divided on Trump, with 44% approving of him and 44% also disapproving. Now his approval rating is 43%, while his disapproval has gone all the way up to 53%. If voters could choose they’d rather have both Barack Obama (52/44) or Hillary Clinton (49/45) instead of Trump.

Just three weeks into his administration, voters are already evenly divided on the issue of impeaching Trump with 46% in favor and 46% opposed.

The political divisions in this nation are just going to grow worse and worse.

But just because we vehemently disagree with someone politically does not mean that we should hate that person.

I know that it can be infuriating to see some politician get up and start spouting off ideas that would be extremely damaging to this country.  But if we choose to hate our political “enemies”, we become part of the problem.

It is easy to love someone that agrees with you about most things.  The real challenge is finding a way to love those that believe things that you may find truly repulsive.

That doesn’t mean that you have to agree with what they believe.  I am not saying that at all.  You can disagree very strongly with someone and still love that person.

Unfortunately, the hearts of most people have grown cold in America.  As hatred, anger and frustration continue to grow, it is only a matter of time before we start seeing outbursts of violence.  Rioting, looting and civil unrest are going to become commonplace in communities all over the U.S., and eventually some of our major cities will burn.  In my latest book I warned that the “thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted will disappear”, and thousands upon thousands of Americans that can see this coming are already fleeing the big cities.

What particularly disturbs me is when I see people that are supposed to be on the same side fighting each other.

If you are around someone long enough, eventually they are going to do or say something to offend you.  None of us is going to agree 100 percent on everything, and it is a horrible shame to allow one disagreement to ruin what should be a great relationship.

If you do not learn to forgive, every relationship that you ever have in your life will ultimately fail, because everyone is going to let you down at some point.

And you may think that you are making the other person pay a price by refusing to forgive, but the truth is that you will be the one that will end up suffering.  Even medical science has found that there are health benefits to forgiving and that unforgiveness can actually help bring on serious illnesses.  The following comes from the official website of Johns Hopkins Medicine…

Whether it’s a simple spat with your spouse or long-held resentment toward a family member or friend, unresolved conflict can go deeper than you may realize—it may be affecting your physical health. The good news: Studies have found that the act of forgiveness can reap huge rewards for your health, lowering the risk of heart attack; improving cholesterol levels and sleep; and reducing pain, blood pressure, and levels of anxiety, depression and stress. And research points to an increase in the forgiveness-health connection as you age.

“There is an enormous physical burden to being hurt and disappointed,” says Karen Swartz, M.D., director of the Mood Disorders Adult Consultation Clinic at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Chronic anger puts you into a fight-or-flight mode, which results in numerous changes in heart rate, blood pressure and immune response. Those changes, then, increase the risk of depression, heart disease and diabetes, among other conditions. Forgiveness, however, calms stress levels, leading to improved health.

There are people that are reading this article that need to pick up the phone right now and apologize to someone that they have been refusing to forgive.

Yes, without a doubt that would be difficult.  But you might just be surprised how much grace a little humility can unleash.

You may not be able to fix our broken nation, but you certainly can fix the broken relationships in your own life.

And if millions of Americans decided to choose love and forgiveness rather than hatred, anger, bitterness and resentment, it would most definitely have a transformative effect on the entire country.

I would like to close with some very wise words from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

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