Money

“California Is Being Overrun By Rodents” – And In This Case We Aren’t Talking About The Politicians

California is being hit by a “plague of rats”, and some commentators are suggesting that this is exactly what they deserve.  In fact, some have even gone so far as to suggest that the name of Los Angeles should be formally changed to “Los Ratas” because the rat problem is so severe there.  From Crescent City in the north all the way down to Chula Vista in the south, the rats are seemingly everywhere.  There are millions of them, and the more poison that people put out the more they seem to multiply.  The state of California has never seen anything like this before, and it is getting worse with each passing month.

At this point, things are already so bad that many are calling for Governor Newsom “to declare a public health emergency”…

Pest control and public health experts are calling on California Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a public health emergency over what they say is a sharp rise in the state’s rodent population.

“California is being overrun by rodents – and without immediate emergency action by state and local government, we face significant economic costs and risk a public health crisis,” said Carl DeMaio, chairman of Reform California, at a news conference Tuesday at City Hall in downtown Los Angeles.

It would be difficult to overstate the severity of this crisis.  According to a recent survey of California pest control companies, rat service requests are up “as much as 60% in the last 12 months”.

If you have ever lived some place where you can literally hear rodents crawling in the walls and in the ceiling, then you know how deeply unsettling it can be.

And in some instances, rodents are literally starting to fall out of the ceilings in California.  Just consider this example…

Maggots and mice have fallen onto inmates’ dining tables at a California state prison where holes in the roof also allow rain and bird droppings to seep through and streak the walls, according to an inmate lawsuit that charges the state isn’t moving fast enough to repair deteriorating prisons.

California has committed $260 million over four years to repair leaking roofs and clear dangerous mold at more than two dozen deteriorating prisons where the cost of overdue maintenance is pegged at more than $1 billion.

A similar incident occurred at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Los Angeles last month while a customer was trying to order her dinner…

Customers at a Los Angeles, Calif., Buffalo Wild Wings were in for a stomach-churning incident when a rat reportedly fell from the ceiling and landed on a table.

Alisha Norman, who was visiting Los Angeles from Texas, was getting ready to order at the chain restaurant when she heard something crawling above her, she told FOX35. Soon after, a rat fell and landed on a menu on the table.

This isn’t some third world country that we are talking about.  The state of California is the wealthiest state in the entire country, and they are being absolutely overrun by rats.

Of course it certainly doesn’t help that many California cities have a major trash collection problem.  The following was published by NBC Los Angeles earlier this year…

Rat-infested piles of rotting garbage left uncollected by the city of Los Angeles, even after promises to clean it up, are fueling concerns about a new epidemic after last year’s record number of flea-borne typhus cases.

Even the city’s most notorious trash pile, located between downtown LA’s busy Fashion and Produce districts, continues to be a magnet for rats after it was cleaned up months ago. The rodents can carry typhus-infected fleas, which can spread the disease to humans through bacteria rubbed into the eyes or cuts and scrapes on the skin, resulting in severe flu-like symptoms.

As a result of all the trash and filth, even Los Angeles City Hall has become overrun by rats…

Officials at Los Angeles’ City Hall are considering ripping all of the building’s carpets up, as rats and fleas are said to be running riot in its halls.

A motion was filed by Council President Herb Wesson on Wednesday to enact the much needed makeover amid a typhus outbreak in the downtown area.

Wesson said a city employee had contracted the deadly bacterial disease at work, and now he’s urging officials to investigate the ‘scope’ of the long-running pest problem at the council building.

When there is a huge problem like this that gets national attention, it is inevitable that California legislators will throw a lot more money at the problem, but that hasn’t worked so well in other cases.

For instance, two years ago New York Mayor Bill de Blasio launched a 32 million dollar program to fight the rat problem in his city, but that didn’t help.  In fact, the number of rat complaints actually increased by 38 percent last year…

New York, like other metropolitan cities including Philadelphia and Chicago, faces a major rat problem.

According to the New York Times, rat complaints have risen from 12,617 in 2014 to 17,353 last year. That’s a 38% jump citywide — and comes even after Mayor Bill de Blasio allocated $32 million in 2017 to reduce the number of the rodents.

And things are particularly bad on the Upper West Side.  They may have mountains of money over there, but they just can’t seem to keep the rats away…

OpenTheBooks.com analyzed the number of calls for rats to 311 and found that, according to the Post, “the rats are running wild in this fancy area.”

A local publication called West Side Rag agreed that the Upper West Side has an extreme rat problem. “We’re like the Tom Brady of rats. All we do is win,” an article reads.

Despite all of our advanced technology, we cannot even handle the rats.

Somehow it seems fitting that the rat epidemic is most severe in the areas that are on the cutting edge of America’s social decline.  In life, you can try to run from the consequences of your actions, but they will catch up with you eventually.

As I have discussed previously, under ideal conditions rats can multiply very, very rapidly.  In fact, it has been estimated that two healthy rats could potentially become 482 million rats in just three years.

Perhaps Californians should just give up and let the rats take over.  After all, they couldn’t possibly do any worse than the politicians in the state are currently doing.

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

War Drums: Europe Readies A Naval Task Force As Iran Threatens To “Secure” The Strait Of Hormuz

It is funny – for decades we have never had any problems with commercial ships passing through the Persian Gulf, but all of a sudden it has become a major flashpoint.  As you will see below, the Iranians are now warning that they plan to “secure” the Strait of Hormuz, and meanwhile a plan for a European-led naval task force to confront the Iranians is rapidly coming together.  The seizure of a British tanker a few days ago really rattled British officials, and they are determined to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.  Of course the more the Persian Gulf region becomes saturated with military assets, the more likely it is that a “mistake” will happen, and it sure won’t take much of a spark to start World War 3 at this point.

Today, close to 20 percent of all the oil produced in the entire world passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and that makes it an exceedingly important waterway.  U.S. and European officials continue to stress the importance of freedom of navigation through the area, and they appear to be losing patience with the Iranians.

But Iran does not intend to back down one bit.  On Tuesday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said that his country “will use its best efforts” to secure the Strait of Hormuz.  The following comes from the Jerusalem Post…

“Iran will use its best efforts to secure the region, particularly the Strait of Hormuz, and will not allow any disturbance in shipping in this sensitive area,” Araqchi told French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, IRNA reported.

So what does that mean exactly?

Do the Iranians plan to keep grabbing oil tankers whenever it suits them?

The seizure of the Stena Impero pushed us dangerously close to war, and the British government is still hoping that negotiations will result in the release of that tanker.

However, the British also plan to flex their military muscles in order to keep such an incident from happening again, and they are calling for other European nations to join them…

France, Italy and Denmark gave initial support for a British plan for a European-led naval mission to ensure safe shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, proposed after Iran’s seizure of a British-flagged tanker, three senior EU diplomats said on Tuesday.

The cautious backing at a meeting of EU envoys in Brussels contrasts sharply with the lukewarm response shown by European allies to a similar American call first voiced at NATO in late June, when countries feared they could make U.S.-Iranian tensions worse.

Could this be the very beginning of a “coalition of the willing”?

According to Reuters, this task force would likely include “aircraft too”, and that is definitely raising some eyebrows…

British foreign ministry and defense officials have also discussed a possible mission, which would likely involve not just ships but aircraft too, directly with their Italian, Spanish, French and German counterparts.

A senior German diplomat in Berlin said Foreign Minister Heiko Maas was in close contact with his British and French counterparts, Hunt and Jean-Yves Le Drian, to “contribute to the security” of the Gulf including on maritime security.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military is making headlines as well.  In an interview with CBS News, CENTCOM Commander General Kenneth McKenzie claimed that U.S. forces may have actually shot down at least two Iranian drones last week…

The U.S. believes it may have brought down two Iranian drones last week, rather than just the one that has been reported, CENTCOM Commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie told CBS News’ David Martin in an interview Tuesday aboard the USS Boxer, the ship that took action against the drones. Asked by Martin whether it was “only one drone,” McKenzie revealed that he believed the Boxer had engaged two drones “successfully” and perhaps even more.

“As always it was a complex tactical picture, we believe two drones. We believe two drones were successfully — there may have been more that we are not aware of — those are the two that we engaged successfully,” said McKenzie.

We should be very thankful that there is no more shooting for the moment, but that could change at any time.

And even if things stabilize in the short-term, the truth is that it is going to be exceedingly difficult to stop the countdown to war at this point.  The U.S. and Israel have both made it exceedingly clear that they will never allow the Iranians to develop their nuclear program past a certain level, and the Iranians have been racing to move their program forward ever since the U.S. left Obama’s nuclear agreement.

Unless there is some sort of crazy miracle and another nuclear agreement happens, it appears that war is on the horizon.

Also, I wanted to mention that we just witnessed a very alarming “incident” off the coast of South Korea on Tuesday…

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a statement claiming they had fired more than 300 warning shots at a Russian A-50 command and control military aircraft early Tuesday morning after it had twice violated the country’s airspace, the first such incident between the countries.

Moscow furiously denied Seoul’s account of the encounter, claiming that South Korean military jets had dangerously intercepted two of its bombers during a planned flight over neutral waters.

That is a huge number of “warning shots”, and it is yet another example of how tense things are all over the world at this point.

Without a doubt, we are living during a time of “wars and rumors of wars”, and once World War 3 begins we will not be able to stop it.

So let us pray for peace, because the alternative is too horrible to even think about right now.

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

The U.S. Is Staging Troops At A Key Saudi Military Base That It Used During All Of Our Previous Middle East Wars

The U.S. military is following many of the exact same patterns that we witnessed during our previous wars in the Middle East, and that even includes setting up shop at a key military base deep in the heart of the Arabian peninsula.  After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the U.S. military abandoned Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, but now they are back.  Hundreds of U.S. troops are already there working hard to get the base operational, and as you will see below, a tremendous amount of new construction is planned.  The base covers “well over a hundred square miles”, and so it has more than enough room to serve as a central hub for a new Middle East war.  Tensions with Iran have escalated dramatically over the past few weeks, but apparently somebody anticipated that the U.S. would need to use this base even before then, because according to NBC News U.S. troops were already arriving back in June…

In June the U.S. military began moving equipment and hundreds of troops back to a military base in Saudi Arabia that the U.S. deserted more than 15 years ago, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the deployment.

Over the coming weeks the deployment to Prince Sultan Air Base, intended to counter the threat from Iran, will grow to include fighter jets and Patriot long-range missile defense systems, the officials said. The Patriots have already arrived at the base and should be operational in mid-July, while the aircraft are expected to arrive in August.

And it turns out that the U.S. military has used this base during all of our previous wars in the Middle East.

For example, according to Air Force Magazine the U.S. military first occupied Prince Sultan Air Base for a few months during Operation Desert Storm…

The US Air Force first occupied the sprawling base in two frantic months from November 1990 to January 1991, then departed. Five years later, USAF and coalition forces moved back into the base. It quickly became a massive facility, home to a state-of-the-art air operations center and serving as the hub for air activity in the region.

Then later on, the base played a key role during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.  The following comes from the Military Times…

Starting with the January 1991 air war against Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait the previous summer, the U.S. flew a wide range of aircraft from Prince Sultan air base, originally known as al-Kharj. Supported by an all-American array of creature comforts like fast-food restaurants and swimming pools, U.S. forces there flew and maintained Air Force fighters and other warplanes.

The base also served as a launch pad for the December 1998 bombing of Iraq, code-named Operation Desert Fox, which targeted sites believed to be associated with Iraq’s nuclear and missile programs. In 2001, the base became home to the U.S. military’s main air control organization, known as the Combined Air Operations Center, which orchestrated the air war in Afghanistan until it was relocated in 2003 to al-Udeid air base in Qatar.

But U.S. activity at the base didn’t reach a crescendo until Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.  Here is more from Air Force Magazine…

Other delicate negotiations came down to the wire just before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. “We’ve had very productive meetings regarding military cooperation with Saudi Arabia in the event of military action against Iraq,” State Department official Richard Boucher announced Feb. 26, 2003.

That day, newspapers reported that the Saudis granted formal permission for PSAB to be used in the war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Operation Iraqi Freedom began March 19.

Once again, PSAB pulled its weight in the air campaign. Fuel was a metric showing just how far PSAB had come since 1996. Prince Sultan Air Base operated at maximum rates during major combat operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom from March 19 to May 1, 2003. During that time, the 363rd Fuels Management Flight issued more than one million gallons per day. Officials had previously expanded the fuel storage capacity at Prince Sultan from two million to more than 15 million gallons.

So as you can see, every time the U.S. has decided to go to war in the Middle East, Prince Sultan Air Base has played a leading role.

And now after all this time we have suddenly returned.

This time around, it appears that the U.S. is planning for a very long stay.  According to NBC News, existing roads and runways will be reinforced and expanded, and the U.S. military is even going to “build a medical facility”…

While Prince Sultan Air Base is an active facility, portions of the base will need an upgrade to accommodate the U.S. military, including reinforcing and expanding roads and runways, one U.S. official said. Base housing will also need updating, the official said, and the U.S. will build a medical facility. Many of the U.S. service members deployed there over the past few weeks are engineers preparing the base for the new mission.

Apparently whoever is in charge of making these sorts of decisions is not very optimistic about peace with Iran.

A tremendous amount of money and effort is required for a project like this, because it is basically the equivalent of putting up a small American city in the middle of nowhere.  The base covers “well over a hundred square miles”, and all the way back in 2002 Wolf Blitzer called it “a little sliver of America in the middle of the Arabian Peninsula”…

“By the time the base complex was completed in 1999, it had cost the government of Saudi Arabia more than $1 billion and covered well over a hundred square miles,” found Air Force historian Daniel L. Haulman.

Food was also a priority. Baskin-Robbins ice cream set up shop as did other popular vendors such as Pizza Inn and Burger King. In time, the exchange provided a small haven of food, shopping, and diversion. “It’s a little sliver of America in the middle of the Arabian Peninsula,” enthused CNN’s war correspondent Wolf Blitzer, who visited the base in December 2002 as forces there prepared for intensifying action against Iraq.

I suppose that the Saudis want us to be as comfortable as possible if we are going to fight a war that will greatly benefit them.

After all, the Saudis and the Iranians have been engaged in a proxy war for many years, and so the Saudis would be absolutely thrilled to see the U.S. military bomb the living daylights out of them.

And Saudi Arabia’s minister of state for foreign affairs actually sounds quite eager for the action to start…

“Any attack on the freedom of navigation is a violation of international law,” Adel Aljubeir said in a Twitter post.

“Iran must realise its acts of intercepting ships, including most recently the British ship, are completely unacceptable. The world community must take action to deter such behaviour,” he added.

But as I discussed in a previous article, if the American people truly understood what a war against Iran would be like, there would be millions of protesters in Washington D.C. right now trying to stop it from happening.  It would be a horrible, bloody, apocalyptic war that would set the entire Middle East ablaze, and it would set the stage for the sort of nightmare scenarios that I have been relentlessly warning about.

Unfortunately, so far only a very small portion of the U.S. population seems alarmed about any of this.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is rapidly preparing for war, and Prince Sultan Air Base is now buzzing with U.S. military activity for the very first time since the invasion of Iraq.

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

Peace Is About To Be Taken From The Earth, And World War 3 Could Literally Start At Any Moment

Why aren’t more Americans concerned that we could be on the verge of an apocalyptic war with Iran?  If there was still any doubt, what happened on Friday made it exceedingly clear that we are literally on the brink of seeing World War 3 erupt in the Middle East.  And as I detailed yesterday, a war with Iran wouldn’t be anything like our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  If the American people truly understood what a war with Iran would be like, there would be millions of protesters in front of the White House right now trying to stop it from happening.  Without a doubt, the Iranian government is deeply evil, but the Iranians also possess weapons of mass destruction and they control a vast global terror network unlike anything the world has ever seen before.  A full-blown war with Iran would be the stuff that nightmares are made out of, and it would unleash death and destruction on an unimaginable scale all over the planet.  Perhaps it is already too late to stop what is going to happen, but I very much hope that is not true.

After news broke on Friday that Iran had seized two British oil tankers, President Trump told the press that “Iran is in big trouble”…

President Donald Trump said Friday that the Islamic Republicn of Iran has endangered itself by seizing a pair of British oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.

‘Iran is showing their true colors,’ he told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House has he departed for a weekend in New Jersey.

‘Iran is in big trouble.’

That doesn’t mean that airstrikes are imminent, but it does mean that we are a lot closer to military conflict than we were before.

Personally, I have no idea what Iran is thinking.  When the Iranians seized a British oil tanker named “Stena Impero” on Friday, it made headlines all over the world…

The U.K.-flagged Stena Impero, which has a crew of 23 aboard, “was approached by unidentified small crafts and a helicopter during transit of the Strait of Hormuz while the vessel was in international waters,” Stena Bulk, the shipping company that owns the vessel, said in a statement. “We are presently unable to contact the vessel which is now heading north towards Iran.”

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard forces, in a statement on their website, say the ship was seized for “non-compliance with international maritime laws and regulations” and is being brought to an unnamed Iranian port, according to the Associated Press. Websites tracking the ship’s path showed it turning sharply in the direction of Iran’s Qeshm Island, instead of its intended destination of Saudi Arabia.

Of course it is also possible that the Iranians are being set up.  According to Iranian media, the Stena Impero “had turned off its GPS locator” and had “tried to enter the Strait of Hormuz in an area where most ships exit”.

If those claims are true, then that certainly puts a much different spin on the story.

Almost an hour later, the Iranians briefly seized a second oil tanker, but after issuing a warning the Iranians let it go…

Approximately an hour later, a Liberian-flagged tanker operated by a British company was also seized by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and was seen on maritime tracking services making a turn toward Iran. Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency later claimed that the second ship, known as the Mesdar, was warned to comply with environmental regulations before being allowed to continue on its way.

Needless to say, the British government is deeply concerned about these developments, and Iranian officials are being warned of “serious consequences” if the Stena Impero is not immediately released…

UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt has warned Iran of “serious consequences” if its military does not return control of the British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero, according to Sky News. He said British action will be “robust” but also emphasized “we’re not looking at military options” at this early stage.

Hunt said he’s seeking to urgently speak to Iran’s foreign minister, currently unreachable as he’s on a plane flying back from a UN meeting in New York, and hopes the crisis will be resolved diplomatically.

Of course this is just the latest in a long string of incidents which have steadily brought us closer to war.  I covered the developments which we witnessed on Wednesday and Thursday in this article, and the following is a timeline of events which the Daily Mail put together…

May 12: Four commercial oil tankers attacked off the coast of the United Arab Emirates. Washington accuses Tehran, which denies all involvement.

June 13: A Japanese and Norwegian fuel tanker are hit by mysterious blasts while passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Again, Iran denies involvement.

June 14: U.S. Military releases video ‘proving’ Iranian involvement in the earlier attacks.

June 20: Iran downs a $130m US surveillance drone over the Strait of Hormuz

July 4: Royal Marines Commandos detain the Grace 1 Iranian tanker in Gibraltar which is accused of busting EU Syrian sanctions

July 11: Iran tries to interfere with a UK-registered tanker but is warned off by the Royal Navy.

July 14: Iran seizes the Panama-flagged ‘Riah’.

July 18: The USS Boxer shoots down an Iranian drone over the Strait of Hormuz which it claimed was endangering the vessel.

July 19: Iran seizes British-flagged ‘Stena Impero’.

July 19: Iran seizes a second British-linked vessel, the Mesdar.

Before I end this article, I want to make a couple of observations about Iran.

Firstly, the Iranians are obviously not afraid of a war with the western powers, because otherwise they would not dare to seize oil tankers.

What is making the Iranians so confident?  Could it be possible that they have weapons that we don’t know about?

Secondly, the Iranians may feel like they have been pushed so far into a corner that they have no choice but to push back.

Let me give you one example of what I am talking about.  Two Iranian cargo ships arrived in Brazil earlier this year, but now they are trapped because the Brazilians won’t sell them enough fuel to get home…

Reuters explained on Friday that the cargo ships Bavand and Termeh arrived in Brazil a few months ago to deliver a shipment of petrochemical fertilizer and pick up loads of corn. The Bavand was loaded up with 50,000 tons of corn and the Termeh is supposed to take on another 66,000 tons.

Carrying food back to Iran is legal under U.S. sanctions and Iran buys a great deal of corn from Brazil, but unfortunately for the Iranian captains, the Petrobras subsidiary that sells maritime fuel in Brazilian ports cited the U.S. sanctions and refused to refuel the ships. The Iranian government might need to send a tanker loaded with fuel all the way to Brazil to get the cargo vessels and their loads of corn.

The U.S. policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran was intended to get them to fold, but instead it might just be making them so frustrated that they will lash out in anger and set off the spark that causes World War 3 to erupt.

And the U.S. military has been preparing for a coming war with Iran for quite some time.  Last month U.S. troops began arriving at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, and U.S. fighter jets are scheduled to arrive in August…

In June the U.S. military began moving equipment and hundreds of troops back to a military base in Saudi Arabia that the U.S. deserted more than 15 years ago, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the deployment.

Over the coming weeks the deployment to Prince Sultan Air Base, intended to counter the threat from Iran, will grow to include fighter jets and Patriot long-range missile defense systems, the officials said. The Patriots have already arrived at the base and should be operational in mid-July, while the aircraft are expected to arrive in August.

The moment missiles start flying back and forth, the price of oil is going to go into the stratosphere and the global financial system will be thrown into chaos.

And when terror attacks on western soil start happening, people will be desperate for the violence to stop, but by then it will be too late.

It appears that we are about to get a war that we do not need and that we do not want, and this comes at a time when so many other elements of “the perfect storm” are coming together.

Unfortunately, I don’t see a lot of urgency among the American people to try to stop this war from taking place.  I think that a lot of people simply do not believe that it will actually happen, and many others seem to assume that we will beat the living daylights out of the Iranians without much damage on our end.  Of course a large chunk of the population is so addicted to entertainment that they have absolutely no idea what is going on in the rest of the world.

Yes, there are a few voices that are speaking out against a war with Iran, and that is a good thing.

But for the most part we are sleepwalking toward World War 3, and once it begins there will be no turning back.

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

“Due To A Poor Harvest Season, We Are Experiencing Shortages On Many Of Our Canned Vegetable Items”

I know that this headline is alarming, but it is actually a direct quote from a notice that was recently posted in a Kroger supermarket.  And as you will see below, similar notices are being posted in the canned vegetable sections of Wal-Mart stores nationwide.  I would encourage you to examine the evidence in this article very carefully and to come to your own conclusions about what is happening.  At this moment, social media is buzzing with reports of shortages of canned vegetables all around the country.  But so far, the mainstream media is being eerily quiet about all of this.  Is there a reason why they aren’t saying anything?  For months, I have been reporting on the extremely bizarre weather patterns that are causing crop failures all over the planet.  But I certainly did not expect that we would already begin to see product shortages on the shelves of major U.S. supermarkets this summer.  What I am about to share with you is shocking, but the truth needs to get out.  For those that share my articles on your own websites, I know that all of the images in this article are going to be an inconvenience, but it is imperative that you include them when you republish this article because they tell a story.  All of the images are taken directly from Facebook, and they prove that we are now facing a nationwide shortage of canned vegetables.

So let’s get started.

This first image was posted on Facebook by Scott L. Biddle, and it shows a “product shortage” notice that was posted in the canned vegetable section of a Wal-Mart in Tennessee…

All the way over on the west coast, similar notices were photographed by Gina Helm Taylor in the state of Oregon on July 12th…

And here are a couple of notices that Daniel Moore was able to photograph during his lunch break at his local Wal-Mart…

It appears that the exact same notices were sent to Wal-Mart stores all across America.  Here is another one from Carol Guy Hodges…

And lastly, here is a photo that was shared by Randy Sevy…

This certainly isn’t the end of the world, and we can definitely survive without canned vegetables for a few weeks.

But as crop failures around the globe continue to intensify, will shortages such as this start to become increasingly common?

Earlier today, I received a very detailed email from a reader that had some excellent intel about what was going on at his own local Wal-Mart.  The following is an excerpt from what he sent to me…

This is alarming in and of itself, however, they are experiencing shortages across most product categories. The only information I could find online was pointing to a driver shortage. I noticed the shortage over the holiday weekend and returned this past weekend to take a closer look. There were problems with paper products, OTC medications, pickles (everyone wanted pickles?), lunch meats and hot dogs, vinegar, produce, alcohol, eggs, cereal, and feminine hygiene products. None of these items had signs like those posted in canned veggies, instead there were small tags placed over the original price tag the say “out of stock” in very small print.

While a driver shortage could cause issues, it’s a little odd to me that there are 12 packs of toilet paper and 6 packs of coke but no 24 packs of either. One of the items being restocked were more of the 12 packs of toilet paper. Does a driver shortage account for this? Another oddity is that one Walmart may have pickles but no tortillas while the exact opposite will be true for a different Walmart. The employees that would normally be stocking were instead counting products (manually) and pulling product to the front of the shelves. There was a six foot stretch of Cheerios along one shelf that was one box deep, hiding the empty shelves behind them.

One more item to note is that the first trip I made over the fourth of July weekend was to purchase canned corn. They had 9 cans of what I was looking for so I purchased them all. The following weekend they had restocked the same corn (there were 10 cans) but the price had increased almost 30%! The original purchase was for $1.44 while one week later the price had increased to $1.88.

Sadly, the economic law of supply and demand is going to continue to push prices higher.

And the tighter that food supplies become, the higher prices will go.

Since the mainstream media is being completely silent about this, many people on social media don’t have much information to go on.  Speculation is rampant, and many are fearing the worst.

One Facebook user named Stephen Dubaniewicz believes that all of the product shortage notices at his local Wal-Mart could mean that a food shortage is on the way…

Hopefully we have some more time before things start getting really bad, but I would encourage you to use this time to get prepared while you still can.

For months, I have been documenting the problems that U.S. farmers have been experiencing due to all of the endless rain and flooding in the middle of the country.

But sometimes a picture is worth a thousands words, and this before and after photo from Nebraska speaks volumes…

We know that food production in the United States is going to be way below expectations this year.

And as I just showed you, it appears that a shortage of canned vegetables has already begun.

A full-blown crisis has not arrived yet, but perhaps one is a lot closer than many of us had anticipated.

This is a huge story, and I will continue to keep you updated.

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

The Number Of Global Earthquakes Is 3 Times Above Normal – 6.1, 6.6, 7.3 + Dozens More Hit The Ring Of Fire Over The Last 48 Hours

Within the last 48 hours we have seen large earthquakes going off like firecrackers all along the Ring of Fire.  As you will see below, a magnitude 6.1 quake just hit Japan, a magnitude 6.6 quake just hit Australia and a magnitude 7.3 earthquake just hit Indonesia.  And of course all of this comes just about a week after southern California was hit by the two largest earthquakes that it has experienced in more than two decades.  So is all of this shaking unusual?  Just a few moments ago, I pulled up the most recent data from Earthquake Track, and what I discovered is more than just a little bit alarming.  Looking at the entire globe, we have averaged 193 earthquakes of magnitude 1.5 or greater per day so far in 2019.  That is very high, but it pales in comparison to what we have witnessed over the last week.  Within the last seven days, our planet has experienced an average of more than 677 earthquakes of magnitude 1.5 or greater per day.  That means that the number of global earthquakes right now is more than 3 times above normal.

And the number of very large earthquakes is at a frighteningly high level as well.  According to the USGS, there have been 121 earthquakes of at least magnitude 4.5 around the world within the last seven days, and that includes the magnitude 6.1 earthquake that just hit Japan.

Incredibly, that quake in Japan brought the number of global earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 or greater that we have seen so far this year up to a grand total of 84.  The following comes from the Big Wobble…

Last nights quake brings the total of major quakes (mag 6+) to 84, incredibly all but 7 of them striking the Pacific Ring Of Fire.

The last 38 major quakes this year, going back to the 3rd of May have occurred along the Pacific Ring Of Fire.

But on Sunday we had to add two more to that total.

The first actually tied the record for the largest earthquake that western Australia has ever seen…

The equal-largest earthquake recorded in Australia has hit off the Kimberley coast, shaking items off shelves and stunning local residents who had never felt a tremor before.

The 6.6 magnitude undersea quake struck at 3.39pm AEST on Sunday between Port Hedland and Broome, GeoScience Australia reported.

The second was even larger.  When a magnitude 7.3 earthquake hit Indonesia on Sunday, it sparked tsunami fears and made headlines all over the globe…

A terrifying 7.3-magnitude earthquake has sparked panic after it rocked the remote Maluku islands in eastern Indonesia today.

Scared residents were seen fleeing through the streets and heading for high ground, though no tsunami warning was issued after the land-based quake struck.

None of this is “normal”.  As I keep warning my readers, we have entered a time of tremendous global instability, and the U.S. is certainly not going to be exempt.

In fact, we just witnessed a magnitude 4.0 earthquake in Montana.  The following comes from Ricky Scaparo…

According to reports from the USGS, A 4.0 earthquake has rattled Manhattan, Montana. This earthquake follows the string of quakes that have rattled the globe over the past few weeks producing powerful earthquakes in Southern California and rattling Seattle, Washington. We will give you more information as we receive it.

The magnitude 4.6 earthquake in Seattle that he mentioned definitely got a lot of attention when it struck very early on Friday morning.  According to a USGS geophysicist, that quake was “widely felt throughout the Seattle area”…

A magnitude 4.6 earthquake shook Seattle and the Puget Sound region just before 3 a.m. Friday, according to the United States Geological Survey.

“It’s been widely felt throughout the Seattle area,” said Paul Caruso, a USGS geophysicist.

I know that California is receiving most of the attention right now, but we definitely need to keep a close eye on the Northwest, because they are definitely overdue for a “Big One” of their own and there are several volcanoes in the region that could literally go off at any time.

Meanwhile, the shaking in southern California simply will not stop.  According to Cal Tech, there have been 10,303 earthquakes of all magnitudes in California and Nevada within the last seven days.

In case you are wondering, that is not “normal” either.

The magnitude 7.1 earthquake that we witnessed back on July 5th did not cause an enormous amount of damage because it happened in a very remote location.

But we should definitely not take that quake lightly, because it was extremely powerful.  According to the Los Angeles Times, it actually “packed the energy of 45 nuclear bombs”…

When the magnitude 7.1 earthquake ruptured the earth in the Mojave Desert, it packed the energy of 45 nuclear bombs of the type that fell on Hiroshima.

Can you imagine if such a quake had happened in downtown Los Angeles?

And if a magnitude 9.0 earthquake were to hit southern California someday, it would be 707 times more powerful than the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that we just witnessed.

Hopefully such a quake is still a long way off, but we have witnessed renewed shaking in the region within the last 24 hours.  The following comes from the Express…

California has since experienced a number of aftershocks with a seismic swarm hitting southern California in the past 24 hours.

Over the course of the last 24 hours, there have been 762 earthquakes in California, 29 earthquakes were over a magnitude of 2.5.

Unfortunately, this is not just a localized phenomenon.

As I showed at the beginning of this article, the number of global earthquakes is three times above normal right now.

Our entire planet is being greatly shaken, and many believe that what we have witnessed so far is just the beginning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Could the Iranians actually be this stupid?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So will Berman recuse himself?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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