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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are you starting to get the picture?

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Could we be facing a similar scenario this time around?

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

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

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

Just check out these examples…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shocking Before And After Photos Reveal The Truth About The Widespread Crop Failures The U.S. Is Facing In 2019

Torrential rains have been hammering the heartland of America for months, and at this point vast stretches of farmland in the middle of the country are nothing but mud.  As a result of the endless rain and unprecedented flooding that we have witnessed, millions of acres of farmland will have nothing planted on them at all in 2019, and that is a major national crisis.  But most farmers were able to get seeds planted in the deplorable conditions, and now they are desperately hoping that something will actually grow.  Unfortunately, on farm after farm what is coming out of the ground looks absolutely terrible.  Even if we get ideal weather conditions for the rest of the summer, there is no way that many of these fields will be ready before the first hard frost arrives.  As you will see below, the truth is that we are potentially facing the most widespread crop failures in all of U.S. history.

This is the biggest news story in America so far this year, and the mainstream media is finally starting to understand the gravity of what we are facing.  Just consider the following quote from a recent Quartz article…

The stories across the Midwest are wrenching. Scrolling through the #NoPlant19  hashtag turns up dozens of posts about farmers staring out at soggy fields or farm equipment foundering in deep mud. It’s likely many will see their harvests devastated this year, and global grain prices could spike.

But of course a picture is worth a thousand words, and so let me share a before and after photo that a farming couple in Indiana named Kyle and Tori Kline recently shared on Facebook…

According to Tori, the corn was almost above Kyle’s head at this time last year, but today it is barely out of the ground…

“These two pictures speaks volumes to the crisis American Farmers are facing this spring. Kyle is about 6’3” and the corn was nearly above his head. Most corn around our area is lucky to be out of the ground, let alone knee high. It’s just some food for thought for those who think farmers are “rich” or “greedy” or what have you. It’s the reason food and gas prices will be getting higher as the summer goes on. I pray for those who didn’t or still haven’t gotten their crops in – for their safety and mental health. This year will be one to remember.”

Do you think that corn is going to be ready when harvest time rolls around?

And of course the Klines are far from alone.  All over the nation, farmers are facing either dramatically reduced yields or no harvest at all.

Let me share four more extremely disturbing before and after photos that were recently posted to Facebook by TD Hale…

We have never seen anything like this before.

Now that you have seen these pictures, are you starting to understand why so many of us have been warning that U.S. agricultural production is going to be way, way down this year?

Corn is not supposed to grow in mud, but due to the horrific weather conditions many farmers in the middle of the country had absolutely no choice in the matter.  For example, corn farmer Scott Labig confessed that he was “ashamed” of what the nightmarish weather conditions forced him to do…

Labig was doing something he had never done in his career. Something his father and his grandfather never did either in their time working this same land for the last century.

“I am ashamed of how I am planting corn today,” Labig told Campbell on the phone. “This is terrible.”

He was putting seeds into mud. How could things actually grow in this mess?

If you do not live in the middle of the country, you may have a difficult time grasping the true scope of what we are potentially facing.

If farmers do not grow our food, we do not eat.  This is not a drill, and widespread crop failures are going to have dramatic implications for all of us in the months ahead.  Food prices are going much higher, and I urge you to get prepared while you still can.

According to John Newton, the chief economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation, we have never faced “anything like this since I’ve been working in agriculture”.  We are truly in unprecedented territory already, and it won’t take very much at all to turn 2019 into a complete and utter national catastrophe.

If the weather is absolutely perfect for the next few months, 2019 will still be a horrible, horrible year for farmers in the middle of the country.

But if the rain doesn’t stop, or if there is too much heat, or if a very early hard frost happens, we could be facing a national nightmare that is beyond what most of us would even dare to imagine.

And guess what?  Over the weekend the middle of the country was pounded by even more severe storms…

Hundreds of people were without power in Missouri and Kansas on Sunday as storms ripped through the area, prompting officials to warn drivers to remain off the roads as flash flood warnings were in effect.

Until 8:45 a.m. central time, a flash flood warning was in effect in Missouri’s Trenton, Bethany and Gallatin cities, according to the National Weather Service, while such warnings were in effect until 8:30 a.m. central time in Saint Joseph, Atchison and Savannah.

Just when you think that this crisis cannot possibly get any worse, it does.

Please share this article with your family, friends and those that you care about.  People need to understand what is going on out there.

We are literally watching a massive national crisis unfold right in front of our eyes, and I will do my best to 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.

President Trump: Please Find A Way To Stop World War 3 From Erupting In The Middle East

The moment that I heard that a U.S. Navy high altitude drone had been blown out of the sky by Iran, I realized that a very important threshold had just been crossed.  We now find ourselves on the brink of World War 3, and one wrong move could unleash death and destruction on a scale that most of us don’t even want to think about.  We have reached one of the most critical junctures in modern American history, and the key decisions will be made by just one man.  When Donald Trump initially ran for president, he promised to stop the endless wars in the Middle East, but now we are potentially facing the biggest one of them all.  More than 80 million people live in Iran, they have a highly sophisticated military, and they have been preparing for a military confrontation with the west for a very long time.

When the media asked President Trump about a possible military response to the drone being shot down, Trump responded by telling the assembled reporters “you’ll soon find out”.  The following comes from a USA Today article entitled “A US attack could be imminent after Iranians shoot down drone over international waters”…

Hours after Iran announced that it shot down a U.S. drone, President Trump told journalists at the White House, “You’ll soon find out” if the U.S. is planning a strike on Iran in retaliation.

“They’re going to find out they made a very big mistake,” Trump added, in comments that came as he met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Needless to say, those words have led many to speculate that military action against Iran could come very quickly.

In addition, it is being reported that military officials gathered at the White House on Thursday to discuss various military options…

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan huddled Thursday with national security officials at the White House to discuss military options, including an attack on the site that launched the missile that destroyed the unmanned surveillance aircraft, according to a Defense official familiar with the discussions but not authorized to speak about them publicly.

And another sign that things have taken a very serious turn is the fact that top congressional leaders were summoned to the White House Situation Room for a briefing on Thursday afternoon…

The White House is inviting congressional leaders to a Situation Room briefing on Iran on Thursday afternoon, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) are expected to attend that meeting, as are the Armed Service Committee and Intelligence Committee chairmen and ranking members, though Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, will be unable to appear. Rank-and-file members received their own briefing earlier on Thursday.

These sorts of briefings for top congressional leaders don’t happen very often, and I would love to know what they were told.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton have been pushing for a military confrontation with Iran for a very long time, and now they may get their wish.

So let’s talk about what that could look like.

President Trump could ultimately opt for a very “limited” strike against the missile site that shot down the drone.  At that point, the Iranians would have a decision to make.  In response, the Iranians could decide to sink the ships that launched the attack on their missile site.  Most Americans don’t realize this, but the truth is that our ships that are sitting in the Persian Gulf right now are sitting ducks.  Sunburn missiles are perhaps the most lethal anti-ship missiles on the entire planet, and the Iranians have stockpiled a large quantity of them over the years.  If the order is given, we will see destroyed U.S. warships sinking in the Persian Gulf on national television.

So how loud will the cries for war become if that happens?

Needless to say, the U.S. would hit back extremely hard, and that would almost certainly include strikes against Iran’s nuclear program.  Even before our drone was shot down, U.S. officials were reportedly considering a plan to strike Iranian nuclear facilities.  The following comes from the Jerusalem Post…

According to the officials, since Friday, the White House has been holding incessant discussions involving senior military commanders, Pentagon representatives and advisers to President Donald Trump.

The military action under consideration would be an aerial bombardment of an Iranian facility linked to its nuclear program, the officials further claimed.

“The bombing will be massive but will be limited to a specific target,” said a Western diplomat.

Of course that would absolutely infuriate the Iranians, and they could respond by launching thousands of missiles at Israel and other strategic targets in the region.

Israel would respond by launching thousands of missiles back, and U.S. news channels would be full of talk about the need to invade Iran.

Once Iranian leadership saw that an invasion was imminent, they would use everything at their disposal in a desperate attempt to ensure their survival.  I know that I discussed this in a previous article, but it bears repeating.  There are many that are absolutely convinced that Iran currently has nukes and would not be afraid to use them if necessary.  Back in 2016, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey co-authored an article along with 4 other former U.S. officials in which they unequivocally stated that they believe that “Iran probably already has nuclear weapons”…

We assess, from U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency reports and other sources, that Iran probably already has nuclear weapons. Over 13 years ago, prior to 2003, Iran was manufacturing nuclear-weapon components, like bridge-wire detonators and neutron initiators, performing non-fissile explosive experiments of an implosion nuclear device, and working on the design of a nuclear warhead for the Shahab-III missile.

Thirteen years ago Iran was already a threshold nuclear-missile state. It is implausible that Iran suspended its program for over a decade for a nuclear deal with President Obama.

Iran probably has nuclear warheads for the Shahab-III medium-range missile, which they tested for making EMP attacks. Two recent tests violate UN agreements, demonstrating that Iran is brazenly developing its nuclear-capable missiles. Iran already has the largest medium-range ballistic-missile force in the Middle East.

So when we are talking about a war with Iran, we are talking about the possibility of a nuclear war.

The stakes are exceedingly high, and one wrong decision by President Trump could set off a sequence of events which would lead to a nuclear holocaust in the Middle East in which millions could die.

We do not want a war with Iran.  It would not go well for America at all.  We are already living in apocalyptic times, and a war with Iran would greatly accelerate things.

President Trump can be a hero by stopping this war from happening.

But if he takes the advice of the war hawks that he has surrounded himself with, we could be about to enter a nightmare from which we will never escape.

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.

“It’s A Disaster Like I’ve Never Seen Before”: 2019 Could Be The Worst Year EVER For U.S. Corn Farmers

The amount of corn produced in the United States this year is going to be way below expectations.  The Department of Agriculture just slashed its harvest estimates quite dramatically in its June report, but some farmers in the Midwest believe that those reduced projections are still way too optimistic.  As I have previously detailed, millions upon millions of acres will go unplanted this year, but that is only part of the story.  Much of the corn that has actually been planted is coming up very slowly due to the exceedingly poor conditions, and corn farmers all over the Midwest are reporting that their plants look absolutely terrible.  If we get picture perfect weather between now and harvest time, this will simply be a terrible year.  But if severe heat and/or an early frost hits the Midwest, this could very easily be the worst year that we have ever seen for corn farmers in the United States.

The other day, Illinois farmer James McCune gathered a large number of his fellow corn farmers for a “Prevent Plant Party”, and the mainstream media showed up to cover it.  The following is from CNBC’s coverage of the event…

James McCune, a farmer from Mineral, Illinois, was unable to plant 85% of his intended corn acres and wanted to commiserate with his fellow farmers by hosting the “Prevent Plant Party” at The Happy Spot. He invited them to swap stories while tucking in to fried chicken and a keg of beer in Deer Grove, a village of about 50 people located 120 miles west of Chicago.

“Everybody’s so down in the dumps,” McCune said.

In addition, McCune told Fox Business that this year is “a disaster like I’ve never seen before”, and he said that some of his neighbors got even less corn planted than he did…

“It’s a disaster like I’ve never seen before,” McCune told FOX Business. “My neighbors didn’t get 90 percent of their corn planted.”

After non-stop rain plagued the region this spring – when corn farmers typically get seed in the ground – most have decided time is now too short and are choosing not to plant.

As bad as things are in Illinois right now, the truth is that some neighboring states are in even worse shape.

According to the latest Department of Agriculture report, 73 percent of the cornfields in Illinois have been planted, but in Indiana that figure is sitting at just 67 percent and in Ohio only 50 percent of the fields have been planted.

50 percent.

That is an unmitigated disaster, because the time for planting corn has now passed.

Needless to say, the farmers that were not able to plant crops have been absolutely flooding their insurance companies with claims.  Just check out this quote…

“We get pockets of claims every year,” said Luke Sandrock of the Cornerstone Agency insurance company. “We have 1-2 percent of our clients (who typically file). This year, it’s over 90 percent, and so we’ve just never dealt with it on this size of a scale before.”

But it is imperative to remember that even if farmers were able to get their fields planted, that does not mean that everything is going to be okay.

In fact, corn farmers all over the Midwest are deeply distressed by what is emerging from the ground.  In his entire farming career, James McCune has never seen anything like this…

A smartphone could fit in the space between James McCune’s index finger and thumb as the Illinois farmer describes the height of crops stunted by incessant rain and unseasonably cool weather.

“Corn’s not supposed to be this tall” in mid-June, McCune, who can trace his family’s farm roots as far back as 1857, said. “It’s supposed to be this tall,” as he gestures just below his waist.

And farmer Rob Sharkey used the word “ugly” to describe the condition of the corn on his farm…

“We planted some stuff that was not pretty,” said corn farmer Rob Sharkey. “But I didn’t have a choice. We did not get conditions that were right for planting, so we went when we could. It’s ugly.”

We’ll see what happens, but right now we are facing an unprecedented nightmare in the heartland of America.

It is exceedingly difficult to grow corn in soil that is absolutely saturated with water.  Some farmers are saying that it is literally going to take “years” to recover from this disaster, and many will never be able to go back to farming again because they have been financially ruined.

Of course there are many farmers that are doing their very best to soldier on, but it is tough.  Illinois farmer Mike Thacker was able to get 60 percent of his fields planted, but at this point he is not happy with a single field…

Mike Thacker, a farmer in Walnut, Illinois, planted about 1,600 acres of corn, or 60% of what he planned. He is reluctant to plant more because yields typically decline the later a crop is planted.

Thacker said corn that has started emerging from the ground is shorter than normal. He was not happy with even one field.

“It makes you feel terrible,” Thacker said at the party.

But like I said earlier, if the weather is ideal between now and harvest time, 2019 will just be a terrible year.

However, a major heat wave this summer would be absolutely catastrophic, and if there is an early frost it “will turn this world upside down”…

Farmers think more cuts are likely as the late-planted crop could face damage from hot summer weather and an autumn frost.

“An early frost will turn this world upside down,” Rock Katschnig, a farmer from Prophetstown, Illinois, said at the party.

So much of the corn that has been planted is way, way behind schedule, and so many Midwest farmers will push things for as long as possible when we get to harvest time.

But an early snap of cold weather could ruin those plans.

In any event, in the short-term U.S. consumers are going to be facing significantly higher prices at the grocery store.  Beyond that, we could potentially be facing the sorts of scenarios that most people don’t like to think about.

For the moment, more rain continues to hammer the middle of the country.  In fact, there was more flash flooding in the Midwest on Saturday…

The combination of two different frontal boundaries caused severe weather and flash flooding in parts of the Plains and Midwest on Saturday. There were over 130 reports of severe weather, including 17 reported tornadoes and numerous reports of straight-line winds of 70 to 80 mph across parts of Texas and Oklahoma.

Sadly, even more “heavy rain” is on the way, and some areas could see over 4 inches of precipitation early in the week…

Heavy rain is expected through Tuesday from Texas to Pennsylvania, with locally over 4 inches of rain expected and flash flooding in spots — especially parts of hard-hit Oklahoma and Arkansas.

I have been repeatedly writing about this crisis for the last couple of months, and now the mainstream media is finally starting to grasp the true gravity of this disaster.

In all of U.S. history we have never witnessed anything like this ever before.  We have seen endless rain and catastrophic flooding month after month so far in 2019, and the middle of the country is still getting pummeled at this moment.

Nobody knows exactly what the weather will look like during the critical summer months, but I have a feeling that the end result of this crisis will be far worse than any of the “experts” were anticipating.

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.

‘Deaths Of Despair’ In The U.S. Hit Record High – So How Bad Will Things Get When Society Starts To Completely Collapse?

According to a shocking new report from the Commonwealth Fund, the suicide rate in the United States is the highest that it has ever been before.  Sadly, the same thing can be said about the death rates from drug overdoses and alcohol.  All three death rates are at an all-time record high, and yet our society is still fairly stable at the moment.  So if we are seeing this many “deaths of despair” right now, what in the world are things going to look like when our society really begins to start crumbling?  Today, Americans have literally thousands of different ways to entertain themselves, and yet we have never been unhappier.  One out of every six Americans is taking psychiatric drugs, we are currently dealing with “the worst drug crisis in American history”, and people are killing themselves in record numbers.  Nobody likes to be told that they are a failure, but it certainly appears that our nation has been on an extremely self-destructive path for a very long time.

Even though “deaths of despair” have reached record levels, the researchers at the Commonwealth Fund found that there are major regional differences.  The following comes from NBC News…

Rates of deaths from suicides, drug overdoses and alcohol have reached an all-time high in the United States, but some states have been hit far harder than others, according to a report released Wednesday by the Commonwealth Fund.

As far as drug overdose deaths are concerned, researchers discovered that the states with the highest death rates were all in northern Appalachia…

“When we look at what’s going on in mid-Atlantic states — West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania — those are the states that have the highest rates of drug overdose deaths in the country,” David Radley, a senior scientist for the Commonwealth Fund, said. Rates in those states are at least double the national average of fatal drug overdose rates.

West Virginia had the highest drug overdose death rates, fueled mostly by the opioid epidemic. What’s more, those rates rose by 450 percent from 2005 to 2017, according to the report.

In addition, the New England states also have extremely high drug overdose death rates.

Nationally, the number of Americans that die from an opioid overdose each year now exceeds the number that die in car accidents.

Talk about a depressing fact.

Meanwhile, for suicide and alcohol deaths it is a completely different story.  In both cases, researchers found that the highest rates are out west…

Death rates from suicide and alcohol also showed regional disparities. People died at higher rates by suicide or from alcohol than from drugs in Montana, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Oregon and Wyoming.

In particular, the suicide rate is disturbingly high in rural western areas, and this agrees with a previously published CDC study which discovered that the suicide rate in rural areas is actually 45 percent higher than in “large urban areas”…

The suicide rate in rural America is 45% greater than in large urban areas, according to a study released last fall by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A more recent CDC report said Montana’s suicide rate leads the nation, coming in at nearly twice the national average. A third long-touted CDC study, currently under review, listed farming in the occupational group, along with fishing and forestry, with the highest rate of suicide deaths.

That occupational study was based on 2012 data, when farming was strong and approaching its peak in 2013, says Jennifer Fahy, communications director for the nonprofit Farm Aid. Farmers’ net income has fallen 50% since 2013 and is expected to drop to a 12-year low this year, the US Department of Agriculture reports.

Sadly, U.S. farmers are currently having their worst year in a generation, and they desperately need our support right now.

Overall, the new report from the Commonwealth Fund found that since 2005 drug overdose deaths in the United States are up 115 percent, alcohol deaths are up 37 percent, and suicides are up 28 percent.

Thanks in large part to those numbers, life expectancy in the United States has now fallen for three years in a row.

Despite all of our advanced technology, and despite our massively bloated debt-fueled standard of living, many Americans are desperately unhappy.  In an attempt to “cure” our unhappiness, many of us have turned to the medical system for answers, and as a result more Americans are on antidepressants than ever before.  In fact, NBC News has reported that one out of every six Americans is currently on at least one psychiatric drug…

One in six Americans take some kind of psychiatric drugs — mostly antidepressants, researchers reported Monday.

They also found that twice as many white people take those drugs as do African-Americans or other minorities, and fewer than 5 percent of Asian-Americans do. And most people who take them are taking them long-term, Thomas Moore of the Institute for Safe Medication Practices in Alexandria, Virginia and colleagues found.

But no matter how powerful a drug is, it can never give you hope.  One of the reasons why I wrote “Living A Life That Really Matters” was to give people hope.  Life really can be filled with meaning and purpose, but most Americans are searching for those things in all the wrong places.

Today, we like to think that our approach to life is superior to the way that previous generations of Americans did things, but the numbers say that they were actually far happier than we are.

Could it be possible that they were right and we are wrong?

If we stay on the current path that we are on as a nation, it isn’t going to lead anywhere good.  Perhaps we should change our ways while we still can.

Get Prepared NowAbout 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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