World War 3 Alert: Iranian Forces Fire Rockets Into Israel, And The IDF Responds With “Waves Of Guided Missiles”

Israel and Iran are edging dangerously close to a state of all-out war.  On Sunday night, Israeli forces rained missiles down on Iranian forces based in the Damascus area “for nearly an hour”.  According to the IDF, this was a response to “dozens” of missiles that were fired by Iranian forces in Syria toward targets in Israel earlier that day.  The Israelis were able to intercept the Iranian missiles, but if any of them had gotten through they could have caused a tremendous amount of damage.  Some of the missiles that Israel fired at the Iranians were reportedly intercepted, but quite a few of them did hit their intended targets. If the violence continues to escalate, we could potentially soon be talking about an all-out war between Israel and Iran in which both sides use their weapons of mass destruction.

The missile strikes against Iranian targets in Damascus made headlines all over the globe.  According to Syrian state media, there were “consecutive waves of guided missiles”

Syrian state media cited a Syrian military source as saying Israel launched an “intense attack through consecutive waves of guided missiles”, but that Syrian air defenses destroyed most of the “hostile targets”.

Witnesses in Damascus said loud explosions rang out in the night sky for nearly an hour.

The Syrians are boasting that they were able to destroy quite a few of the Israeli missiles, but independent observers confirm that quite a few Iranian targets were destroyed.

In the past, the Israelis have not always publicly acknowledged their attacks in Syria, but on Sunday night they released an immediate statement

“We have started striking Iranian Quds targets in Syrian territory,” Israel’s military said in a statement.

“We warn the Syrian Armed Forces against attempting to harm Israeli forces or territory.”

You can see some footage of the missile strikes right here.  Among the targets were “weapons warehouses at the Damascus International Airport”

Targets striked by the IDF, which number at around 10 according to its statement, include weapons warehouses at the Damascus International Airport and in other locations, an Iranian intelligence site and an Iranian training camp in Syria’s south.

Now that the Iranians have been hit so hard, will they respond by striking back at Israel?

If both sides continue to escalate the violence, eventually a “point of no return” will be reached, and then all hell will break loose.

Prior to the IDF missile attacks on Iranian targets, rockets were fired toward the Golan Heights from inside Syria, and Israel blamed those attacks on the Iranians

The Israeli military said earlier on Sunday that missiles fired toward the northern Golan Heights were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system. It added in a statement on Monday that an Iranian force fired these missiles, but said it holds the Syrian regime responsible for any activity in its territory.

It seems extremely unlikely that this conflict will be resolved any time soon.  The Iranians are certainly not going to leave Syria, and they are definitely going to continue to funnel arms and resources to Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon.

And the Israelis have clearly stated that they are going to resist any Iranian attempts to strengthen Hezbollah or to establish a permanent military presence inside Syria.  In fact, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu couldn’t have been any clearer when he said this to reporters

“We have a permanent policy, to strike at the Iranian entrenchment in Syria and hurt whoever tries to hurt us,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

If a full-blown war erupts in the days ahead, Israel will almost certainly find itself fighting Iran, Syria and Hezbollah simultaneously.  Of course Hezbollah is essentially an Iranian proxy, and at this point they have between 130,000 and 150,000 missiles aimed at Israel.  When war finally comes, it will be extremely bloody and extremely destructive.

Tonight, we are closer to such a war than ever.  The Iranians and the Israelis absolutely hate one another, and now they are firing missiles at one another.

It isn’t going to take much to push the two sides over the edge, and if that happens we are just a hop, a skip and a jump away from the start of World War 3.

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.

On Sunday Night, A “Super Blood Wolf Moon” Will Cross Over The White House On The 2nd Anniversary Of Trump’s Presidency

Could it be possible that a “harbinger of doom” is about to cross directly over Washington D.C. on Sunday night?  Some people seem to think so, and they are pointing to passages in the Bible such as the one where Jesus warns that there will be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars during the end times.  I am sure that there will be a lot of debate about this all over America as the weekend progresses, but what we do know is that the eyes of the world are on Donald Trump right now, and a “super blood wolf moon” will cross directly over his house on Sunday night.  But it isn’t just any ordinary night.  It turns out that this will happen on exactly the second anniversary of Trump’s inauguration.  Over the past several years there have been a number of very strange “coincidences” surrounding Donald Trump, and now this is one of the strangest of all.  Could it be possible that someone is trying to tell us something?

On the other side of the planet, this eclipse won’t be visible.  For example, nobody in China will get a glimpse of it at all.  But it just so happens that this “super blood wolf moon” will be visible from every U.S. state

The lunar eclipse will be visible at the end of this month, as the Moon is coated in a foreboding red hue. This year’s eclipse is a particularly rare type of blood moon, known as a Super Blood Wolf Moon. The occasion is often marked with fear for many, having formerly been regarded as a sign of the end times. There will be few areas which escape the scarlet satellite, including the USA, where every state will catch a glimpse.

A “super blood wolf moon” is quite rare, and the next one will not happen for many years.  If you are not familiar with this term, it basically means that three lunar events are happening simultaneously

“Super Moon” – a full moon that appears bigger than normal because it’s at its closest point to Earth during its orbit.

“Wolf Moon” – a Native American term used to describe the first full moon of the year.

“Blood Moon” – the moon appears to be reddish in color during a total lunar eclipse as the sun, Earth and moon all line up.

On Sunday night, the moon will be much bigger and brighter than normal, and during the eclipse it will appear to be blood red.

And according to the Express, it will be visible in Washington D.C. for a total of 5 hours and 12 minutes…

– Beginning: Sun, January 20 2019, 21:36pm

– Maximum: Mon, Jan 21 2019, 00:12am

– Ends: Mon, Jan 21 2019, 02:48am

– Total Duration: five hours and 12 minutes

But just because this event is strange, does that mean that it has to have some sort of special significance?

Not necessarily, but many spiritual leaders are warning us to be watchful.

For example, this is what Pastor Mark Biltz is saying

“Trump was born on the night of June 14, 1946, within 15 minutes of a total lunar eclipse and 700 days before the state of Israel was established,” Biltz said. “When he was sworn in as president on Jan. 20, 2017, he was 70 years old, seven months and seven days. Also, very significantly, the super blood moon also falls on the Jewish holiday of Tu B’Shevat. Even more significant is the fact that there was another blood moon on Tu B’Shevat last year. Last year, the blood moon was seen over the Middle East, and this year, will be seen over the U.S.”

Biltz said that from a biblical standpoint, having two blood moons on the same biblical holiday two years in a row is very significant.

And in a Charisma News article about this eclipse, Rabbi Fish is warning that we are entering a time of “great human suffering”…

“This is the period we are entering now,” Rabbi Fish stated baldly, emphasizing that the Western nations are about to enter an extremely challenging era. “There will be great tragedies that will bring down governments and great human suffering. Only by doing God’s will can tragedies be avoided or lessened.”

Lastly, Pastor Paul Begley is boldly proclaiming that now is a time for urgency

During an online sermon, the preacher said: “Obviously these apocalyptic signs in the heavens are pointing to a catastrophic event that is just on the horizon.

“We don’t know when – just because you’re going to have a Super Blood Moon on January 20 and January 21, doesn’t mean on January 22 all hell’s going to break loose.

“But then again it doesn’t mean it won’t, ok, so there’s these signs that are starting to be revealed.

“The urgency folks is now. Right now, ok? The urgency has begun.”

Whether Sunday night’s “super blood wolf moon” ultimately means anything or not, the truth is that we certainly have entered apocalyptic times and 2019 is certainly shaping up to be a very troubled year.  We are in the midst of the longest government shutdown ever, the two largest economies on the entire planet are engaged in a trade war, the global economy is steamrolling toward a recession, anger and frustration are rising to dangerous levels in our society, very strange and unusual signs are happening all over the world, and the crust of our planet is being shaken by one large seismic event after another.

Global events are starting to accelerate, and it looks like 2019 is going to be quite a chaotic year.  So whatever you may believe about Sunday night’s “super blood wolf moon”, the truth is that we all need to get ready for tough times ahead.

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.

Magma Under The Yellowstone Supervolcano Is “Rising”, And Scientists Warn That An Eruption Would Devastate The Entire Planet

Could it be possible that a full-blown eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano is not too far away?  All over the world seismic activity has been increasing in recent years, and this process seems to have accelerated during the early days of 2019.  In particular, quite a few once dormant volcanoes are springing to life again, and this has many concerned about what could potentially happen at Yellowstone.  Of course Yellowstone has never been “dormant”, but there have been new signs of life over the past six months.  Entirely new geysers have sprung out of the ground, Steamboat Geyser has been the most active that it has been in decades, and some geysers have even been shooting “debris and rocks” into the sky.  And now we are being told that “a 465-mile-long piece of molten rock” is “rising” directly under Yellowstone

SCIENTISTS are closely monitoring a 465-mile-long piece of molten rock rising below the Yellowstone caldera, a bombshell documentary has revealed.

The supervolcano, located in Yellowstone National Park, has erupted three times in history – 2.1 million years ago, 1.2 million years ago and 640,000 years ago. Volcanoes typically blow when molten rock, known as magma, rises to the surface following the Earth’s mantle melting due to tectonic plates shifting. However, geologists have revealed how Yellowstone’s magma chamber, which sits on top of the magma plume, is slowly rising each year.

Hopefully nothing major will happen at Yellowstone for a very long time.

But experts assure us that another full-blown eruption will take place one day, and when it does, it could potentially create a global “volcanic winter” which would make growing crops almost impossible and ultimately cause horrific global famines.  The following quote comes from Dr. Christopher Kilburn

“As a result of which, the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the earth drops and, as a consequence of that, it will trigger what is called a volcanic winter in that the temperatures never get a chance to recover.

“So you go through winter, the ash veil prevents the sun from warming up the earth seasonally so you just get continued winters which might trigger, ultimately, extensive ice coverage.”

If Yellowstone were to erupt today, none of our lives would ever be the same again from that moment on.

We are talking about a disaster that is on a scale that most of us couldn’t even imagine, and it would instantly render most of the country completely uninhabitable.  The following is an extended excerpt from one of my previous articles about Yellowstone

I would like to try to describe for you what a full-blown eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano would mean for this country.

Hundreds of cubic miles of ash, rock and lava would be blasted into the atmosphere, and this would likely plunge much of the northern hemisphere into several days of complete darkness. Virtually everything within 100 miles of Yellowstone would be immediately killed, but a much more cruel fate would befall those that live in major cities outside of the immediate blast zone such as Salt Lake City and Denver.

Hot volcanic ash, rock and dust would rain down on those cities literally for weeks. In the end, it would be extremely difficult for anyone living in those communities to survive. In fact, it has been estimated that 90 percent of all people living within 600 miles of Yellowstone would be killed.

Experts project that such an eruption would dump a layer of volcanic ash that is at least 10 feet deep up to 1,000 miles away, and approximately two-thirds of the United States would suddenly become uninhabitable. The volcanic ash would severely contaminate most of our water supplies, and growing food in the middle of the country would become next to impossible.

In other words, it would be the end of our country as we know it today.

The rest of the planet, and this would especially be true for the northern hemisphere, would experience what is known as a “nuclear winter”. An extreme period of “global cooling” would take place, and temperatures around the world would fall by up to 20 degrees. Crops would fail all over the planet, and severe famine would sweep the globe.

In the end, billions could die.

Scientists are constantly monitoring Yellowstone for potential signs of an eruption, but the truth is that a major disaster of this magnitude would probably come with little or no warning.

It is undeniable that in recent months there have been signs of increased activity at Yellowstone.  That doesn’t mean that an eruption is imminent, but without a doubt it should be a cause for concern.

And this is especially true considering all of the shaking that we are seeing elsewhere around the globe.  Just within the past few days we have seen a magnitude 4.1 earthquake hit California and a magnitude 5.1 earthquake near Anchorage, Alaska.  The latter one definitely shook a lot of people up

Residents took to earthquake monitoring site EMSC to share their experiences. One said: “Long and big. Significant anxiety spike!

Another added: “That was scary. Hard quake.”

We are not even to the middle of January, and there have already been more than 100 significant earthquakes in Alaska so far this year.

That is not normal.

Our planet appears to be going through some major changes, and many believe that all of this seismic activity is an indication that things are about to become quite apocalyptic.  I am personally of the opinion that we are going to continue to see a rise in the number of earthquakes and that we are going to continue to see a rise in the number of volcanic eruptions.

As I have said before, the shell of our planet is cracked, and we are just floating on the pieces.  Now those pieces appear to be getting increasingly unstable, and that is going to affect us in ways that most people cannot even imagine right now.

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.

Signs Of The Times? A Plague Of Locusts Hits Mecca And Earth’s Magnetic Pole Is Experiencing A “Sudden Shift”

Really strange things are starting to happen all over the world.  We’ll talk about “the North Pole’s sudden shift” later in this article, but first I want to focus on the very unusual event which just took place in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.  A “massive swarm” of thousands upon thousands of black locusts descended upon the holiest site in Islam, and video of this “plague” is understandably causing quite a stir all over social media.  The following comes from the Times Of Israel

A massive swarm of locusts plagued Mecca, Saudi Arabia, earlier this week, prompting authorities at Islam’s holiest site to launch a cleaning operation to remove them.

Videos posted to social media showed the insects swarming around cleaners and worshipers in the city’s Grand Mosque, where millions of Muslim pilgrims congregate every year.

And this was not just a temporary phenomenon.  Once the locusts arrived, they didn’t want to leave, and it is being reported that they were “covering the walls of the mosque”

A closer-up view shows them swarming in all directions, over the heads of the cleaners in green uniforms attempting to deal with them.

Another shot shows the insects covering the walls of the mosque as they swarmed across the site.

According to Saudi authorities, it took 22 teams consisting of a total of 138 people to clean up the infestation.

Meanwhile, the behavior of our planet is once again making headlines.  According to scientists, the magnetic North Pole is making a “sudden shift” away from Canada and toward Russia

Deep beneath the Earth’s surface, liquid iron is sloshing around at its core, causing the North Pole to move away from Canada and towards Siberia. This has caused global geomagnetism experts to undergo an urgent update of the World Magnetic Model where it will alter where exactly North Pole is. The next update was not scheduled to happen until 2020, but due to the North Pole’s sudden shift, researchers have to bring it forward.

These days the vast majority of us heavily use GPS to get around, and the rapid movement of the magnetic North Pole is causing serious navigation errors

Precision of where the North Pole is needed for GPS across the globe, and currently is is close to exceeding “the acceptable (safe) limit for navigational errors,” the journal Nature reports.

Arnaud Chulliat, a geomagnetist at the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) National Centers for Environmental Information, said: “The error is increasing all the time.

“The fact that the pole is going fast makes this region more prone to large errors.”

In essence, GPS is losing its GPS.

Of course the magnetic North Pole has always been moving a little bit, but in recent years that movement has been greatly accelerating

But the movement of the north magnetic pole has been the object of study since 1831. Initially, it was tracked moving into the Arctic Ocean at a rate of about 15km each year. But, since the mid 1990s, it has picked up speed.

It’s now shifting at a rate of about 55km a year.

At the same time, Earth’s magnetic field has been getting weaker and weaker, and this has many experts deeply concerned that we could soon experience a catastrophic pole flip.  The following comes from one of my previous articles

The Earth’s magnetic field is steadily getting weaker, and scientists are warning that it could soon flip. If that happens, it will be a cataclysmic event beyond anything that we have ever experienced before. Of course most people never even give much thought to the giant magnetic field that surrounds our planet, but without it modern society would simply not be possible. The magnetic field provides protection for the electrical grid which powers our homes, our businesses, our hospitals, our stores, our banks, our computers and our televisions. It is essentially an enormous “force field” that protects our world from solar storms and cosmic radiation. Right now we take that protection for granted, but scientists tell us that Earth’s magnetic field has flipped before, and that it could soon happen again.

Basically, we are talking about an event that would be even worse than a direct hit from a massive electromagnetic pulse from the sun.

If a sudden pole flip happened today, electronic devices all over the world would be crippled, and scientists tell us that we would be facing “trillions of dollars in damage”

According to a team of international scientists, including from the Australian National University (ANU), such an event in the future would increase our planet’s exposure to the Sun’s radiation, and could cause trillions of dollars in damage by decimating power and communications systems across the globe.

We truly live in apocalyptic times, although most people still don’t seem to understand what is happening.

Our planet is changing.  Earlier this week I wrote about the fact that Alaska had been hit by 81 significant earthquakes during the first nine days of 2019.  Large quakes are rattling locations all along the Ring of Fire, once dormant volcanoes are going off like firecrackers all over the globe, and the tsunami that just struck Indonesia once again reminded us of how vulnerable we really are to major natural disasters.

Right now the mainstream media in the United States is keenly focused on the government shutdown, but in the grander scheme of things the shutdown is small potatoes compared to some of the other things that are happening.

2019 has gotten off to a very strange start, and I have a feeling that things are about to get a whole lot stranger.

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.

The Mainstream Media Warns America Will Be Facing An “Economic Hellscape” If The Government Shutdown Continues

Is the mainstream media overhyping the economic impact of the government shutdown for political purposes?  Of course they are.  Once upon a time the mainstream media in the United States at least attempted to maintain a facade of objectivity, but those days are long gone.  In this case, they want to stir up as much public resentment against President Trump as possible in order to try to force him to end the government shutdown.  And when NBC News breathlessly declared that the U.S. “would face an economic hellscape” if this shutdown stretches on for an extended period of time, their article quickly went viral all over the Internet.

But will it really be “an economic hellscape”?

Here are some of the things that they say we will be facing in their “doomsday scenario”

  • 38 million low-income Americans lose food stamps
  • 6 million face an uncertain timetable for collecting tax refunds
  • 2 million without rental assistance and facing possible eviction
  • 800,000 paycheck-less federal employees plunged into dire financial straits
  • Shuttered parks and museums while overstressed airports cause tourism to tank
  • Federal court system slows to a crawl
  • Disaster relief money doesn’t get to storm-ravaged areas

Yes, things would certainly be unpleasant for a lot of people, and there would be a whole lot of anger around the country.

But such a scenario does not qualify as “an economic hellscape”.  I would encourage the folks over at NBC News to pick up a copy of The Beginning Of The End if they really want to know what the initial phases of a major economic crisis scenario could look like in this nation.

The most alarming item on their list is the fact that 38 million Americans could soon lose access to food stamps.  According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, that will officially happen by the end of February

By the end of February, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, run by the Department of Agriculture, would be out of funding — meaning almost 40 million low-income Americans could find themselves struggling to pay for food, said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist for the accounting firm RSM US.

Things would certainly be tough for a lot of low income people, and there would be a lot more traffic at shelters and food banks, but nobody would starve to death.

The worst case scenario would be if mobs of angry people started taking to the streets and rioting in large urban areas.  That is definitely a possibility, especially if this shutdown lasts for several more months.

But for the moment, most of the focus is on the hundreds of thousands of federal workers that are not getting paychecks right now.  We are being endlessly bombarded with sob stories about how much these workers are suffering after missing one paycheck.

If people can’t handle going a couple of weeks without pay, how are they going to handle things when a real crisis erupts in this country?

With no end to the shutdown in sight, some lower paid federal workers have decided that it is time to find a new job

Transportation Security Agency officers forced to work without knowing when their next paycheck is coming are no longer just calling in sick. Now, 18 days into the partial government shutdown, some are resigning, according to Hydrick Thomas, who heads the TSA Council on the American Federation of Government Employees.

“Every day I’m getting calls from my members about their extreme financial hardships and need for a paycheck. Some of them have already quit and many are considering quitting the federal workforce because of this shutdown,”  the official said in a statement posted to the union’s website on Tuesday.

I can’t say that I blame TSA workers too much for quitting.  It is an absolutely miserable job, and the starting salary for TSA security officers is somewhere “between $25,000 to $30,000 a year”.

Of course we don’t actually need a TSA at all.  Many of us would love to go back to the days before 9/11 when we could get on flights without having someone inspect our private areas.

Another aspect of the shutdown that is horrifying NBC News is the fact that no new beers are being approved right now

The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau is out during the shutdown. That means the federal government will not approve beer labels or process permits, which translates into no new beers.

At this moment there are literally millions of people around the world that actually have nothing to eat and no clean water to drink, and this is what we are whining about?

I have an idea.  Why don’t we shut down the “Alchohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau” permanently and let people make beer without having to get permission from the federal government first?

As I have proposed, we could save enormous amounts of money by simply shutting down useless government agencies that we do not need.

But that would make far too much common sense to work in America in 2019.  We live at a time when the American people expect the federal government to protect them from just about every potential danger that you can possibly imagine.

Look, I don’t want to seem completely unsympathetic to the plight of all of these federal workers that are being used as pawns in this game of political brinkmanship.  Because 78 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, that means that a lot of these federal workers are not going to be able to pay their bills, and that would be extremely stressful for anyone.  And at this point, thousands of federal workers have already begun filing for unemployment benefits

More than 4,700 federal employees filed for unemployment in the last week of December, compared with 929 the week prior, according to the Department of Labor. There is no federal data available yet for the first week of January. Unemployment rules vary by state; generally the government provides benefits to eligible workers who have lost a job “through no fault of their own,” for a maximum of 26 weeks.

But the mainstream media is blowing things way out of proportion when they start using phrases such as “economic hellscape”.

Yes, this shutdown is going to cause some significant pain for a lot of people, but it is definitely not the end of the world.

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.

 

$3.5 Trillion A Year: America’s Health Care System Has Become One Of The World’s Largest Money Making Scams

If the U.S. health care system was a country, it would have the fifth largest GDP on the entire planet.  At this point only the United States, China, Japan and Germany have a GDP that is larger than the 3.5 trillion dollar U.S. health care market.  If that sounds obscene to you, that is because it is obscene.  We should want people to be attracted to the health care industry because they truly want to help people that are suffering, but instead the primary reason why people are drawn to the health care industry these days is because of the giant mountains of money that are being made.  Like so many other things in our society, the health care industry is all about the pursuit of the almighty dollar, and that is just wrong.

In order to keep this giant money machine rolling, the health care industry has to do an enormous amount of marketing.  If you can believe it, a study that was just published found that at least 30 billion dollars a year is spent on such marketing.

Hoping to earn its share of the $3.5 trillion health care market, the medical industry is pouring more money than ever into advertising its products — from high-priced prescriptions to do-it-yourself genetic tests and unapproved stem cell treatments.

Spending on health care marketing nearly doubled from 1997 to 2016, soaring to at least $30 billion a year, according to a study published Tuesday in JAMA.

This marketing takes many different forms, but perhaps the most obnoxious are the television ads that are endlessly hawking various pharmaceutical drugs.  If you watch much television, you certainly can’t miss them.  They always show vibrant, smiling, healthy people participating in various outdoor activities on bright, sunny days, and the inference is that if you want to be like those people you should take their drugs.  And the phrase “ask your doctor” is usually near the end of every ad…

The biggest increase in medical marketing over the past 20 years was in “direct-to-consumer” advertising, including the TV commercials that exhort viewers to “ask your doctor” about a particular drug. Spending on such ads jumped from $2.1 billion in 1997 to nearly $10 billion in 2016, according to the study.

As a result of all those ads, millions of Americans rush out to their doctors to ask about drugs that they do not need for diseases that they do not have.

And on January 1st, dozens of pharmaceutical manufacturers hit Americans with another annual round of massive price increases.

But everyone will just keep taking those drugs, because that is what the doctors are telling them to do.  But what most people never find out is that the pharmaceutical industry goes to great lengths to get those doctors to do what they want.  According to NBC News, the big drug companies are constantly “showering them with free food, drinks and speaking fees, as well as paying for them to travel to conferences”.

It is a legal form of bribery, and it works.

When you go to most doctors, they will only have two solutions to whatever problem you have – drugs or surgery.

And since nobody really likes to get cut open, and since drugs are usually the far less expensive choice, they are usually the preferred option.

Of course if doctors get off the path and start trying to get cute by proposing alternative solutions, they can get in big trouble really fast

Today’s medical doctors are not allowed to give nutritional advice, or the American Medical Association will come shut them down, and even if they were, they don’t know the right things to say, because they weren’t educated that way in medical college. So instead, M.D.s just sling experimental, addictive drugs at symptoms of deeper rooted sicknesses, along with immune-system-destroying antibiotics and carcinogenic vaccines.

That’s why any medicine that wrecks your health is easy to come by, just like junk food in vending machines. The money isn’t made off the “vending” products, the money is made off the sick fools who are repeat offenders and keep going back to the well for more poison – it’s called chronic sick care or symptom management. Fact: Prescription drugs are the fourth leading cause of death in America, even when “taken as directed.”

Switching gears, let’s talk about hospitals for a moment.

When you go to the hospital, it is often during a great time of need.  If you are gravely ill or if an accident has happened and you think you might die, you aren’t thinking about how much your medical care is going to cost.  At that moment you just want help, and that is a perfect opportunity for predators to take advantage of you.

Just consider the example of 24-year-old Nina Dang.  She broke her arm while riding her bicycle in San Francisco, and so she went to the emergency room.

The hospital that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg donated so much money to definitely fixed her arm, but later they broke her bank account when they hit her with a $24,000 bill

A bystander saw her fall and called an ambulance. She was semi-lucid for that ride, awake but unable to answer basic questions about where she lived. Paramedics took her to the emergency room at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, where doctors X-rayed her arm and took a CT scan of her brain and spine. She left with her arm in a splint, on pain medication, and with a recommendation to follow up with an orthopedist.

A few months later, Dang got a bill for $24,074.50. Premera Blue Cross, her health insurer, would only cover $3,830.79 of that — an amount that it thought was fair for the services provided. That left Dang with $20,243.71 to pay, which the hospital threatened to send to collections in mid-December.

Most Americans assume that if they have “good health insurance” that they are covered if something major happens.

But as Dang found out, you can still be hit with crippling hospital bills even if you have insurance.

Today, medical debt is the number one reason why Americans declare bankruptcy.  Because of the way our system is set up, most families are just one major illness away from financial ruin.

And this kind of thing is not just happening in California.  The median charge for a visit to the emergency room nationally is well over a thousand dollars, and you can be billed up to 30 dollars for a single pill of aspirin during a hospital stay.

Our health care system is deeply broken, and it has been designed to squeeze as much money out of all of us as it possibly can.

Unfortunately, we are stuck with this system for now.  The health care industry is certainly not going to reform itself, and the gridlock in Washington is going to make a political solution impossible for the foreseeable future.

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.

January 20: A ‘Super Blood Wolf Moon’ Will Cross Over America On The 2nd Anniversary Of Donald Trump’s Inauguration

On the evening of the 20th of January, a very strange phenomenon will happen.  A total lunar eclipse that has been dubbed a “super blood wolf moon” will appear in the sky above America.  The entire eclipse from beginning to end will be visible from every single location in the continental United States, but much of the rest of the world will miss out on this experience completely.  For example, the eclipse will not be visible at all anywhere in China.  Some would argue that it is just a coincidence, but it is almost as if somebody arranged the timing of this “super blood wolf moon” so that it would be seen specifically by people living in the United States.  And it just so happens that this “super blood wolf moon” will occur precisely on the second anniversary of the inauguration of Donald Trump.

Of course some of you may have never even heard of a “super blood wolf moon”.  Basically, what that term means is that a “super moon”, a “blood moon” and a “wolf moon” will all be happening simultaneously.

A “blood moon” happens during a lunar eclipse when some of the sun’s light is still able to reach the moon.  The following comes from USA Today

Although the moon is in Earth’s shadow, some sunlight still reaches the moon. The sunlight passes through Earth’s atmosphere, which causes our atmosphere to filter out most of the blue light.

Some sunlight reaches the Earth’s atmosphere, which envelops the moon and gives it the rich color.

A “super moon” happens when a full moon coincides with the moon’s orbit being within 90 percent of its closest approach to Earth, and that can make the moon look much bigger and brighter than normal

A super moon occurs when the full moon is at the closest point of its orbit to the Earth, which is also called the perigee.

That makes the moon look extra close and extra bright – up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than a full moon at its farthest point from Earth, known as the apogee, NASA said.

Lastly, a “wolf moon” is simply “the year’s first full moon”

This will be the first lunar eclipse of 2019 and the last total lunar eclipse until 2021. It coincides with the year’s first full moon — a “wolf moon” in the folklore tradition because it occurs at a time of year when wolves howl outside villages — and comes when the moon is slightly bigger and brighter because it’s at the closest point to Earth in its elliptical orbit.

Since it’s a so-called supermoon that’s being shadowed, some media outlets have dubbed this eclipse a “super blood wolf moon.”

So is it significant that all three of these things are happening at the exact same time on the second anniversary of Donald Trump’s inauguration?  Well, Pastor Mark Biltz sure seems to think so

“Trump was born on the night of June 14, 1946, within 15 minutes of a total lunar eclipse and 700 days before the state of Israel was established. When he was sworn in as president on January 20, 2017, he was 70-years-old, seven months and seven days. Also, very significantly, the Super Blood Moon also falls on the Jewish holiday of Tu B’Shevat. Even more significant is the fact that there was another Blood Moon on Tu B’Shevat last year! Last year the blood moon was seen over the Middle East and this year will be seen over the U.S.”

In ancient times, a “blood moon” was considered to be a sign of impending doom, and some Christian leaders are pointing out that the Bible says that the moon will be an important “sign” during the times that the Bible refers to as “the last days”.

For example, the following is what Luke 21:25-28 says in the Modern English Version

25 “There will be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; 26 men fainting from fear and expectation of what is coming on the inhabited earth. For the powers of heaven will be shaken. 27 Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 When these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption is drawing near.”

And this is what Joel 2:31 says in the Modern English Version

The sun will be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awe-inspiring day of the Lord comes.

Last but certainly not least, this is what Revelation 6:12 says in the Modern English Version

I watched as He opened the sixth seal. And suddenly there was a great earthquake. The sun became black, like sackcloth made from goat hair, and the moon became like blood.

Ultimately there will be a lot of debate about what this “super blood wolf moon” could possibly mean, but at this point nobody really knows.

But it does seem very odd that it is happening exactly on the second anniversary of the inauguration of Donald Trump.  Whether you love him or you hate him, in America today it seems like the entire world revolves around Trump.  The mainstream media has been fixated on him since the moment he first announced that he was running for president, his decisions are deeply affecting the lives of every man, woman and child in the whole country, and everybody in the entire nation simply can’t stop talking about him.

Even when I write articles that have nothing to do with Trump at all, most of the comments that my readers post are still about Trump.

Many believe that the fate of the United States appears to be inseparably linked with Donald Trump, and I am sure that my readers will feverishly debate whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.

But without a doubt, 2019 is shaping up to be a very challenging year, and later this month a very strange omen will appear directly in the sky over America on the second anniversary of Trump’s inauguration.

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.

An Inside Look At The Social Decay That Is Eating Away At America Like An Aggressive Form Of Cancer

The character of a nation is a reflection of the character of millions of individual people, and one of the fastest ways to get a sense of the character of individual people is to visit their homes.  It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and if that is true then a home visit has got to be worth a million.  Sadly, there is a reason why so many Americans that make a living making service calls in other people’s homes absolutely hate their jobs.  Way too often they are confronted with the worst that America has to offer, and many of them end up psychologically scarred for life as a result.  For example, the following is from an article in which Lauren Hough described her time as a cable installer

I’d walk in prepared for anything. There was sobbing, man or woman, didn’t matter. There were the verbal assaults. There were physical threats. To say they were just threats undermines what it feels like to be in someone else’s home, not knowing the territory, where that hallway leads, what’s behind that door, if they have a gun, if they’ll back you into a wall and scream at you. If they’ll stop there. If they’ll call in a complaint no matter what you do. Sure, we were allowed to leave if we felt threatened. We just weren’t always sure we could. In any case, even if we canceled, someone else would always be sent to the same house later. “Irate. Repeat call.” And we’d lose the points we needed to make our numbers.

America wasn’t always like this.

Once upon a time, Americans generally treated one another with kindness, dignity and respect.

But now social decay is spreading like wildfire, and this country is rapidly becoming unrecognizable.

Just recently, a congressional report discovered that one of the largest drug companies in the entire nation had shipped “more than 3 million prescription opioids” to a single pharmacy in West Virginia…

In just 10 months, the sixth-largest company in America shipped more than 3 million prescription opioids — nearly 10,000 pills a day on average — to a single pharmacy in a Southern West Virginia town with only 400 residents, according to a congressional report released Wednesday.

McKesson Corp. supplied “massive quantities” of the painkiller hydrocodone to the now-shuttered Sav-Rite Pharmacy in Kermit, even after an employee at the company’s Ohio drug warehouse flagged the suspect pill orders in 2007, the report found. That year, McKesson — ranked 6th in the Fortune 500 — reviewed its customers, including Sav-Rite, and reported to the Drug Enforcement Administration that the purchases were “reasonable,” according to the report.

Of course West Virginia is right at the heart of the horrific opioid crisis that is sweeping the nation.  But what amazes me is that nobody at McKesson Corp. saw anything wrong with pouring millions of highly addictive pills into a very small pharmacy in a town with only 400 residents.

Out on the west coast, drug addicts are shooting up and smoking crack right in front of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals

Outside the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in downtown San Francisco, a woman urinates on the sidewalk and smokes a crack pipe.

Inside her purse are about a dozen used heroin needles. She shoots heroin up to 10 times per day, she says.

About 50 yards away, a man injects another woman in the neck with a needle. She puts her thumb in her mouth and blows on it to make her vein more visible. Her right arm is caked with dried blood.

The Ninth Circuit is the country’s largest federal appeals court, and President Trump recently nominated a radical left wing activist to fill a vacancy on it.  And right out in front of the court it literally looks like a third world cesspool.

You may be tempted to think that this is one of the worst neighborhoods in San Francisco, but the truth is that it is actually one of the best

This San Francisco neighborhood is home to the headquarters of Uber, Twitter and Salesforce. But stroll around here, and you’re also likely to find used drug paraphernalia, trash, and human excrement on the sidewalks, and people lying in various states of consciousness.

During 2018, San Francisco citizens filed more than 20,000 complaints about human feces in the streets.  There are words to describe what San Francisco has become, but I am not able to print them in this space.

We like to think that we are an “example” to the rest of the world, but the truth is that they are all laughing at us.  And I had to laugh too when I recently came across this story

A man has been arrested after he drove his pickup truck into a courthouse in Mississippi.

News outlets reported that the Gulfport Police Department said in a news release that 28-year-old Keith Cavalier told officers he intentionally crashed into the Harrison County Courthouse early Saturday because it was the best way to let them know his drug paraphernalia had been stolen.

What in the world is happening to us?

Let’s switch gears for a bit.  Instead of talking about drugs, we’ll talk about sex for a moment.

At one time, if a teacher had sex with a student it was a major national scandal.  But now it is happening so frequently that it is usually not considered to be “newsworthy” anymore.  In fact, during the most recent fiscal year the state of Texas alone “opened 429 cases into inappropriate student-educator relationships”

During fiscal 2017-18, the TEA opened 429 cases into inappropriate student-educator relationships — an approximate 42 percent increase from the prior year, said Doug Phillips, director of educator investigations at TEA, during a Senate Education Committee meeting this week.

“I think we’re just getting a lot more of these reports that maybe would not have been reported in the past,” he said.

But just when you think that nothing could top Texas, Colorado comes along and says “hold my beer”.

After all, nothing says “classy” like a 1,000 person orgy

A POLYAMOROUS events planner has revealed her quest to organize the world’s largest orgy – inviting 1,000 to the marathon sex party.

Pearl Derrier, 29, from Denver, Colorado, goes to orgies at least once a month as one person can’t fulfill her “every physical and emotional need”.

Her partners, boyfriend Dan Patrick, 35, and “homemaker” girlfriend Tomi Tailey, 30, are also happy for her to have casual liaisons with other people at orgies.

The fabric of our society is literally rotting away right in front of our eyes, but most Americans are still in denial about what is happening.

Just like all other major empires throughout human history, we are decaying from within, and we should be deeply alarmed at what we have become.

In his year in review article, Dave Barry made a great point about the current state of American culture

What made this year so awful? We could list many factors, including natural disasters, man-made atrocities, the utter depravity of our national political discourse and the loss of Aretha Franklin. Instead we’ll cite one event that, while minor, epitomizes 2018: the debut of “Dr. Pimple Popper.”

This is a cable-TV reality show featuring high-definition slo-mo closeup videos of a California dermatologist performing seriously disgusting procedures on individuals with zits the size of mature cantaloupes. You might ask, “Who on Earth would voluntarily watch that?” The answer, in 2018, was: MILLIONS OF PEOPLE. That is the state of our culture. We can only imagine what new reality shows lie ahead. We would not rule out “Dr. Butt Wiper,” or “People Blow Their Noses Directly Onto The Camera Lens.”

Sadly, I have a feeling that a show called “Dr. Butt Wiper” would rapidly become one of the most popular television shows in America.

We truly are a nation in decline, and things are getting worse with each passing year.

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.