“And the word of the Lord came to Elijah, saying, Depart hence eastward, and hide thee by the brook of Chorrath, that is before Jordan. And it shall be that thou shalt drink water of the brook, and I will charge the ravens to feed thee there. And Eliu did according to the word of the Lord, and he sat by the brook of Chorrath before Jordan. And the ravens brought him loaves in the morning, and flesh in the evening and he drank water of the brook.”
(1Kings 17:2-6)
Ravens To Feed Thee

Dear Friends,

We recently received an email regarding the situation between the US and Iran. We thought to publish the question and our response in case others may also be concerned about this current situation.

“Dear Robert,

God bless you brother! Right now I'm dealing with whether this Iran threat is legit, and whether that reveals that we've entered into the MATT. 24: 42 thru 47 sphere of events...any input you wish to give will be greatly appreciated.

One more point...I just finished reviewing a total review and expose' of the last 14 years of the "coup" and their maliciousness!

Therefore I'm now deeply concerned as to just how really near you consider we are to "A.C. days"...Again, God bless you!

+++

Dear C.

Always nice to hear from you.

As far as the situation in Iran is concerned, until the US sends in high numbers of ground troops, as it did in Iraq in 2003 it seems unlikely the US would send a strike against Iran. (There were just over 177,000 troops sent to Iraq in 2003.) I am sure you have heard of the possibility of the US sending 120,000 troops to Iran but this has been denied by Trump. In fact he is quoted as saying if he did send ground troops to Iran it would be much more than 120,000.

Of course all this is relative depending on different issues. This could change immediately if something happened to close the Straits of Hormuz, or if large scale sleeper cells in the US were to attack the infrastructure such as the electrical grid, and of course a false flag operation could not be ruled out.

I am more concerned looking towards the end of 2019 looking for the possibility of a devastating economic development.

Then there is Israel. There are so many variables but it is possible they could all work together simultaneously.

Then there is the insane moral degeneracy seething throughout the US and UK and much of the western, no longer Christian, world.

I could be wrong, but I don't think we are quite there yet, but we are very close not far off.

We shall see.

God bless,”

WND

Photo of 'Christ' coming in clouds of sky goes viral

Posted By Joe Kovacs

May 15, 2019

Some see an image of Jesus Christ being crucified in this March 2019 photo of the sky in Agropoli, Italy. (Photo by Alfredo Lo Brutto, Facebook)

Article

BREITBART

Texas Officials Illuminate Crosses After Atheists’ Call for Removal

LANA SHADWICK

May 12, 2019

COLDSPRING, TX – Elected officials in an East Texas community defiantly illuminated the crosses on their courthouse after an atheist organization told them to take them down. The move came after the county judge and commissioners voted unanimously to keep the four crosses on the county building.

Breitbart News reported that the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) complained to San Jacinto County public officials about the prominent display of the “Latin cross[es].” The self-described “state/church watchdog” claims it has over 30,000 members.

The foundation issued an “Action Alert” to its supporters on May 7^th saying, “A concerned Coldspring resident reported to FFRF that San Jacinto County has the crosses up all year round and even lights the crosses during the holiday season.” The organization that calls itself a “nonprophet nonprofit” asked members to “Tell San Jacinto commissioners to remove courthouse crosses.”

As reported, 600-700 residents filled the Coldspring Community Shelter when the commissioners voted on the issue. Over 45 residents signed up to address the county officials at the meeting which felt like a revival, one speaker said.

Residents of the county of just under 29,000 people celebrated on social media after it saw photos of the illuminated Christian symbol on the courthouse.

Dwayne Wright, who serves as the county’s GOP chair, took this photo and posted it on his Facebook page saying, “THIS is how we roll in San Jacinto County! Not only did we not cower to the Wisconsin Whiners, we Lit Them Up!”

Legal foundations offered to provide representation if the organization sues the East Texas county.

Breitbart News has reported about FFRF efforts to regulate other types of expression, including speech in other places in Texas.

Several years ago, the organization told Hondo, Texas, it should take its iconic signs down. The signs in the community of 9,000 say, “Welcome. This is God’s Country. Please Don’t Drive Through It Like Hell.” The mayor was reported to respond, “There’s no way in hell we’re going to take those signs down.” The signs have existed since 1932 in the city just 40 minutes west of San Antonio.

Officials in Orange, Texas, took another direction after being challenged by the foundation. Residents were furious when county officials decided to take down a nativity scene that had been hosted on city property to celebrate the holidays for 30 years. The FFRF had demanded a display of their own. City Manager Shawn Oubre told Fox4 in Beaumont, Texas, that officials removed the Nativity scene in order to avoid legal costs.

At this weeks’ commissioner court meeting in Coldspring, there were boos and jeers when the decision of the special utility district was announced. The local water management board voted not to display a cross on its water tower at Christmas.

***

RT

Alabama governor signs draconian abortion ban punishing doctors with up to 99 years in prison

Published time: 15 May, 2019 22:29E dited time: 16 May, 2019 01:33

© Reuters / Jason Reed JIR

Alabama governor Kay Ivey has signed the US’ strictest abortion law into effect, criminalizing the procedure even in cases of rape or incest and slapping abortion providers with a possible life sentence.

The measure outlaws all abortions except in cases where the mother’s life is at stake, declaring the procedure a class-A felony punishable by 10 to 99 years in prison. Even attempting an abortion carries a sentence of 1 to 10 years. Ivey signed the bill on Wednesday, capping off an acrimonious battle in the state legislature that culminated in Tuesday’s passage of the bill 25 to 6.

"To the bill’s many supporters, this legislation stands as a powerful testament to Alabamians’ deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God," Ivey said in a statement after signing the bill. "To all Alabamians, I assure you that we will continue to follow the rule of law."

Supporters are actually hoping the new law will be challenged in court. Drafted as a sneak attack on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion across the US, a challenge to the law could result in Roe being overturned, if it is appealed up to the Supreme Court.

Critics argue the bill is flagrantly unconstitutional. Even the strictest of the anti-abortion bills passed in other states in recent years have had exceptions for rape or incest; such an amendment was proposed in the Senate, only to be rejected in a vote split along party lines.

Ivey acknowledged the law could be “unenforceable,” but echoed its backers’ concerns. “Many Americans, myself included, disagreed when Roe v. Wade was handed down in 1973. The sponsors of this bill believe that it is time, once again, for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit this important matter, and they believe this act may bring about the best opportunity for this to occur.”

If unchallenged, the law will take effect in six months. The American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood have promised to file a lawsuit to prevent that, vowing that “abortion will remain a safe, legal, medical procedure at all clinics in Alabama.” The ACLU won a suit against the state in 2016, striking down a 2013 law that required doctors providing abortions to have hospital admitting privileges on the grounds that it unconstitutionally restricted access to the procedure.

***

The British Psychological Society

Research Digest

“Shooting The Messenger” I A Psychological Reality – Share Bad News And People Will Like You Less

By Matthew Warren

May 8, 2019

We all know the movie scene: a nervous aide has to deliver bad news to his villainous boss, stumbling over his words and incessantly apologising. For a second, it looks like he will be OK – until the boss turns around and summarily executes him.

But it turns out this phenomenon of “shooting the messenger” is not just restricted to fiction. A new paper in Journal of Experimental Psychology: General has demonstrated that we do tend to take a dim view of the bearers of bad news – even when these people are simply innocent messengers.

Previous work had already shown that we often form unfavourable opinions of people who give us negative feedback. But this could be justified: the reviewer could have been unfairly biased against us, for example. Leslie John and colleagues at Harvard University wanted to take things further and find out how we view others who are simply a conduit for bad news, and who clearly have no control over the content of the message they’re sharing.

Across a series of 11 experiments, the team looked at how people responded when taking part in, or imagining, a situation where someone delivered them bad or good news.

The first study confirmed that bearers of bad news are not well-liked. Participants had the chance to win an extra $2 when a research assistant picked a number from a hat, depending on whether it was odd or even. After picking the number, the research assistant handed it to a colleague – the “messenger” – to read out. Participants who received bad news – that they had not won the extra $2 – later rated this innocent messenger as less likeable than those who received good news.

In the subsequent studies, the team tried to figure out exactly what was driving people to shoot the messenger. The effect seemed to be specific to those who deliver the news, with others present at the same time remaining unaffected. In one scenario, for example, participants imagined a hospital appointment where they received either good or bad news about whether a skin biopsy was cancerous. There were two nurses in the scenario, one who delivered the news and the other who was there to schedule a follow-up appointment – but only the “messenger” nurse was rated as less likeable when the news was bad.

The team also found that the effect was stronger in situations in which bad news was unexpected or made less sense. In another scenario, participants imagined that while waiting at the airport, a staff member announced that their flight was delayed by three hours. Half of the participants were told that flights would still be departing in the scheduled order, while the rest were told that another plane had been given their flight’s departure slot. In the latter situation (which, the authors write, “violate[s] the commonly held beliefs that the world is just, predictable, and comprehensible”), the participants gave the staff member a particularly low likeability rating.

And a handful of experiments revealed that people may shoot the messenger because they believe the messenger has nefarious motives – even when this doesn’t make logical sense. One group had the chance to win 50 cents if they predicted correctly whether the number of words in the main headline of the next day’s Wall Street Journal was even or odd. The next day, those who heard from a research assistant that they had guessed wrong didn’t just rate this researcher as less likable – they also said they thought that the researcher had been hoping they’d get it wrong, even though she clearly had no control over the situation.

Altogether, the research suggests that “shooting the messenger” has a real basis in the way people act in everyday situations. It seems to stem from a number of sources, including a desire to make sense of negative or unexpected situations, and a tendency to misattribute malicious motives to messengers. While the researchers concentrated on the “likability” of the messenger, they add that participants could be making other negative judgements as well: for example, one of the studies found that people also judge bringers of bad news as less competent.

These tendencies make life harder for both messenger and receiver, the authors say. Delivering bad news is already a difficult task, and being seen as unlikable only adds to that struggle. And because people aren’t keen on accepting advice from those they dislike, they might miss out on important help. “Especially when the messenger is integral to the solution, as is often the case in medical contexts, ‘shooting the messenger’ may impede people from taking steps to make their own futures brighter,” the authors write.

—Shooting the messenger

(All you have to do is to look at the fate of God's prophets, messengers, to know how bad news is received. See Hebrews chapter 11.)

***

Big League POLITICS

Canada Moves to Ban Christians From Demonstrating in Public Under New Anti-Hate Proposal

The Canadian province of Ontario is considering legislation that would officially criminalize Christianity.

By Shane Trejo

May 11, 2019

Legislation proposed in the Canadian province of Ontario would criminalize public displays by Christians deemed hateful to Muslims, the LGBT community and other victim groups designated by the left.

The bill, “Prohibiting Hate-Promoting Demonstrations at Queen’s Park Act, 2019,” bans any demonstration, rally or other activity that is deemed hateful by the Speaker from being permissible on legislative grounds – effectively insulating the government from Christian speech.

Life Site News explains that the nebulous nature of Canada’s anti-hate laws essentially give leftist legislators carte blanche to ban all Christian protest:

The problem with this bill, however, lies in the fact that the definition of “hate” is uncertain under Canadian law. As a result, unfortunately, the use of the word “hate” can be a useful tool for some to prevent differing views from being expressed. That is, the word “hate” can be used to silence opposing views expressed when, in fact, the views are simply a reasonable expression of belief.

This concern is based on actual experience. Canadians have already experienced the contempt shown by the Supreme Court of Canada towards Section 2 of the Charter of Rights which provides for freedom of opinion, expression and religion. In the Trinity Western Christian University case (2018), a private Christian university’s moral covenant was deemed hateful and discriminating. In the Bill Whatcott case (2013), the Supreme Court of Canada concluded that the effects of an expression used, not the communicator’s intent, are what is relevant. The court went on to conclude that “truthful statements and sincerely held beliefs do not affect the finding of “hate”. Mr. Whatcott merely expressed in his pamphlet the well-established facts about homosexuality which the court held to be “hateful”. It is worth noting that the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal, presumably consisting of equally learned judges, had previously concluded that the pamphlet was not hateful. The Supreme Court of Canada prides itself on being a “progressive” court and has an established bias as evidenced in a series of decisions that have struck down laws based on traditional values. There is little likelihood that the court will protect tradition-based groups if they are denied the right to demonstrate at the provincial legislature.

As Canada becomes more restrictive toward Christianity, they open their arms for the LGBT agenda and Islam to take a foothold in their culture.

The Royal Canadian Mint issued a commemorative coin last month to celebrate homosexual love as a core principle of Canadian society.

“Marking 50 years since a landmark decision that began a process of legal reforms to recognize the rights of LGBTQ2 Canadians is a powerful way to recognize Canada’s profound belief in equality and inclusion,” said Marie Lemay, president and CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint.

Meanwhile, the far-left Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been revealed to be plotting different ways to bring ISIS terrorists to his nation and possibly be re-introduced in public life.

“None of the options are ideal and all present different challenges and risks,” said the three-page secret paper, which was heavily redacted after its release through the Access to Information Act.

As globalism and liberalism takes a stronger hold in Canada, the government can be expected to become even more hostile to Christianity and more hospitable to subversive agendas.

Cultural Action Party of Canada

Justin Trudeau Informs Minister Religious Christians “Worst Part Of Society”

May 11, 2019

According to a clause introduced by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, pro-life Christians are barred from federal funding unless they support a woman’s right to an abortion.

“I have met Justin Trudeau three times,” said Pastor Steve Long, a Canadian Baptist minister. “Sadly my last meeting with him in his office was very disappointing. He told me that evangelical Christians were the worst part of Canadian society.”

Trudeau’s enmity toward Christians is not solely against evangelicals. Canada under Trudeau has also become a very unwelcome place for Christians who flee from persecution in the Middle East.

Over 30,000 Syrian refugees were brought to Canada in an expedited manner and found themselves immediately taken care of by the Trudeau government. In the meantime, mass murder to the point of genocide of Christians has occurred within a number of Islamic nations. Trudeau has said not a word about the situation, and government assistance for the victims has been casual and minimal.

When questioned on his religious affiliations, Mr. Trudeau claims to be a Catholic. Yet inexplicably, his behaviour displays not an ounce of Christian identity or adherence to Christian values. It’s all so damn strange. In fact, his behaviour toward Christianity is downright punitive. Pushing mass abortion and euthanasia. Cancelling funding for church groups. Ignoring Christian persecution within foreign nations. Running down evangelicals.

If this is the behaviour of a believing Christian, than perhaps Osama Bin Laden deserved to be appointed Pope. Justin Trudeau is as mystery of a prime minister, made all the more mysterious by establishment media obfuscation. Perhaps the truth shall be revealed once Justin is removed from office, which according to current polls, is likely to be the case come the October, 2019 election. Thank God for that.

• B. SALZBERG

WND

Muslim vows to kill Asia Bibi in Canada

May 15, 2019

A video is circulating the internet in which a Muslim youth, saying he is in Canada, vows to kill Pakistani Christian Asia Bibi, who recently fled to the North American nation from her home country after her death sentence for “blasphemy” against Muhammad was overturned.

“This message is for all the enemies of Islam and to the Jew government who helped her get out of Pakistan,” the man declared, according to a translation provided by the British Pakistani Christian Association, reported Breitbart News.

“To give Asia Bibi a terrible death and to send her to hell I also reached Canada last night,” he said.

“I am ready to die for the respect of Prophet Muhammad, and I will show that.”

In a chant, he said “the enthusiasm to die for the Prophet Mohammad will stay alive forever” and vowed to kill Bibi.

As WND reported, Bibi was held in protective custody after Pakistan’s Supreme Court overturned the conviction and death sentence in October as members of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan political party and others vowed to kill her, her family, and the judges and lawyers who helped her.

She had spent eight years on death row.

Breitbart reported it’s unknown whether the threat made in the video is genuine.

But Wilson Chowdhry, the BPCA chairman who advocated for Bibi’s release, said he has expressed his concern about Bibi’s safety with authorities in the United States, Britain, Canada and Pakistan.

“Pakistan has been relatively silent since the release of Asia Bibi, but international security agencies must not get complacent,” he said.

“Her release is a real bone of contention with the millions of radicalized Muslims across the globe who are waiting for an opportunity to assassinate Asia Bibi, or a mass terrorist strike in revenge for what they see as a perceived blasphemy.”

BPCA said security around churches in Pakistan has been increased significantly since the release of Bibi.

(Pray for her safety.)

***

THE GOSPEL HERALD

Christianity Inflicting 'Enormous Harm' on China, Warns Communist Party

By LEAH MARIEANN KLETT

May 9, 2019

China's total Christian population is now thought to number anywhere between 25 million and 100 million people Photo: GETTY Getty Images

A local government communications agency in China recently held a seminar to discuss with Communist Party members the "enormous harm" Christianity is to the atheist nation and identify ways to stunt its growth.

According to Chinese Christian persecution watchdog China Aid, the event, titled "Christianity's Enormous Harm on China's Security," was held on April 22 in the city of Hebi in China's Henan province.

"The Chinese government often views religions, including Christianity, as foreign attempts to undermine its rule, even though there is no evidential basis for such a claim," China Aid reports. "As a result, they often try to suppress religious adherents, and they openly forbid Communist Party members from practicing a religion."

UCANews.com reports that the Hebi Municipal Radio Administrative Bureau in Henan publicly admitted to holding the seminar on its WeChat page.

"It said the seminar was to help members correctly understand Christianity and prevent the occurrence of ideological deviations," notes the outlet. However, the WeChat message was deleted only two days after it was released.

Fenggang Yang, a professor of sociology at Purdue University's Center on Religion and Chinese Society, estimated in 2017 that there are anywhere from 93 million to 115 million Christians in a nation of over 1.3 billion people, reports the South China Morning Post. It's estimated China is on track to have the largest Christian population in the world by 2030.

In efforts to control the growth and spread of Christianity, Communist authorities have shut down a number of prominent house churches and arrested Christians and church leaders for worshiping without the approval of the government. It has also cracked down on the online sale of Bibles; the Bible is printed in China but legally available only at church bookstores.

Ying Fuk-tsang, director of the divinity school at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told ucanews.com that the Hebi seminar reflects the Chinese government's increasing controls of ideology in China through telecommunications and internet networks.

Ying explained that China's Communist Party has tended in recent years to exhibit extensive social management "through nonreligious ways to deal with religious issues."

"[T]herefore it is no longer a single religious department to manage religion, but the joint effort of different departments to manage all around," Ying explained, adding that he believes that President Xi Jinping is part of the effort to claim religion is a threat in China.

In light of these abuses, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom listed China as a "country of particular concern" for religious freedom violations in its 2019 annual report.

Speaking at the National Religious Broadcasters convention in April, U.S. Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback identified China as a particularly oppressive, systematic persecutor of Christians, demonstrated by the destruction of churches and the arrest of pastors and religious adherents.

"Unfortunately, the United States is one of the few countries willing to stand up to China," Brownback said. "We need more allies to stand up to them, particularly on these issues of human rights and religious persecution."

Christian communicators, he emphasized, play an important role in combating religious persecution and alerting the public of the sobering reality Christians around the world face every day.

"We need a grassroots uprising saying, 'No more to religious persecution. No more,'" Brownback said. "It's through the reporting and story-telling that you do, of organizations like yours that can serve as catalysts for advocacy."

TMIN

A German Prophecy More Than 800 Years Old Appears To Contain Stunning Details Of God’s Judgment On America

By

Michael T. Snyder

May 10, 2019

Over 800 years ago, a German mystic known as St. Hildegard saw that a “great nation in the ocean that is inhabited by people of different tribes” will be devastated “by an earthquake, storm and tidal waves”. Ultimately, that nation “will be divided, and in great part submerged”. Obviously, the “great nation in the ocean that is inhabited by people of different tribes” would likely be the United States of America. And many men and women of God during our time have been shown that America will someday be hit by giant tsunamis on both coasts and that a great earthquake will divide our country in the middle right along the New Madrid fault line. Could it be possible that St. Hildegard saw the exact same things?

The other day, Lindy Snow Pierce asked me if I had ever heard of St. Hildegard, and I had to admit that I had not.

So I started doing some digging, and I discovered that she lived in Germany more than 800 years ago. The following info on her background comes from the Encyclopedia Britannica…

St. Hildegard, also called Hildegard of Bingen or Hildegard von Bingen, byname Sibyl of the Rhine, (born 1098, Böckelheim, West Franconia [Germany]—died September 17, 1179, Rupertsberg, near Bingen; canonized May 10, 2012; feast day September 17), German abbess, visionary mystic, and composer.

Hildegard was born of noble parents and was educated at the Benedictinecloister of Disibodenberg by Jutta, an anchorite (religious recluse) and sister of the count of Spanheim. Hildegard was 15 years old when she began wearing the Benedictine habit and pursuing a religious life. She succeeded Jutta as prioress in 1136. Having experienced visions since she was a child, at age 43 she consulted her confessor, who in turn reported the matter to the archbishop of Mainz. A committee of theologians subsequently confirmed the authenticity of Hildegard’s visions, and a monk was appointed to help her record them in writing. The finished work, Scivias (1141–52), consists of 26 visions that are prophetic and apocalyptic in form and in their treatment of such topics as the church, the relationship between God and humanity, and redemption. About 1147 Hildegard left Disibodenberg with several nuns to found a new convent at Rupertsberg, where she continued to exercise the gift of prophecy and to record her visions in writing.

It is important to keep in mind that at the time of her ministry the United States of America did not exist and the Protestant Reformation had not happened yet.

She had many prophecies regarding the end times and the Antichrist, but her prophecy that appears to talk about the future of the United States is what really got my attention.

Remember, this prophecy is more than 800 years old…

Before the Comet comes, many nations, the good excepted, will be scoured with want and famine. The great nation in the ocean that is inhabited by people of different tribes and descent by an earthquake, storm and tidal waves will be devastated. It will be divided, and in great part submerged. That nation will also have many misfortunes at sea, and lose its colonies in the east through a Tiger and a Lion. The Comet by its tremendous pressure, will force much out of the ocean and flood many countries, causing much want and many plagues. All coastal cities will be fearful and many of them will be destroyed by tidal waves, and most living creatures will be killed and even those who escape will die from a horrible disease. For in none of these cities does a person live according to the laws of God.

In our time, dozens of men and women of God have been shown that a meteor will one day strike the Atlantic Ocean. That impact will cause a tsunami that is hundreds of feet high to slam into the east coast of the United States, and millions will be killed.

To me, it sounds like St. Hildegard is referring to that exact event in this prophecy.

Throughout history, there have always been men and women with a prophetic gift. The Lord always warns about judgment in advance, and in this case we appear to have a warning that is more than 800 years old.

Of course in our day and time the warnings have become a lot more intense. All over the world people have been having supernatural experiences where they have been shown what is coming, and we will continue to detail more of those on this website in the days ahead.

Natural News

Israeli researcher claims chemical giant DuPont colluded with Nazi Germany to create eugenics programs

Wednesday, May 08, 2019 by: Ethan Huff

(Natural News) A doctoral candidate at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem says that research he’s been conducting has led him to the conclusion that chemical giant DuPont had a well-established relationship with the Nazis in Germany both before and during World War II, and was working with the Hitler regime to develop eugenics programs against targeted enemies.

According to Nadan Feldman, as many as 150 United States corporations had similar such ties to the Nazis. But he claims that DuPont, like other drug and chemical companies at the time, were especially close to Hitler, working in lockstep with the political movement more out of a shared sense of ideology and belief, as opposed to simply for profit.

After poring through many years’ worth of financial and regulatory reports, including back-and-forth correspondence between DuPont executives and the Nazis, Feldman determined that “the main motive” of DuPont’s involvement with German powers during the 1930s and 1940s was simply to further the cause of the Nazis.

“The researcher pointed out that DuPont executives began providing support to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in the 1920s, well before the 1932 elections which led to the establishment of the Nazi dictatorship in the country in 1933,” Haaretz reports.

“In addition to financial support to Hitler, executives allegedly provided financial support to extremist groups in the United States itself, and expressed an interest in causes taken up by the German fascists, such as eugenics and the theory of racial superiority,” the Israeli news outlets adds, noting that one of these executives was former DuPont president Irenee du Pont, according to Feldman.

DuPont partnered with IG Farben to share “critical knowledge for war production”

There were others involved in these Nazi partnerships as well, including the infamous IG Farben drug company, which would later bear the more well-known drug company offshoot known as Bayer.

According to Feldman, DuPont established a technology-sharing agreement with IG Farben that allowed the exchange of “critical knowledge for war production.” In turn, this allowed the Nazis “to start the war,” Feldman maintains, with the development of new technologies such as synthetic rubber.

This partnership between DuPont and the Nazis, and presumably IG Farben, lasted until 1943, which was well into World War II after Nazi Germany had already made considerable headway in taking over much of Europe. It also lasted beyond the point when the Nazis attacked the USSR, and even after the Nazis declared war on the U.S. itself.

“Ties were only formally cut after Germany confiscated the assets of U.S. companies in September 1943,” reveals Sputnik News.

Keep in mind that Bayer, which was created by IG Farben, purchased the world’s most evil corporation, Monsanto, back in 2016 for, get this, $66 billion. A $66 billion purchase in 2016, by the way, includes three 6s – which probably wasn’t an accident.

“The combined name, of course, should be ‘MonSatanFarben’ because Bayer is an offshoot of Interessengemeinschaft Farben (IG Farben), the Nazi-era chemical company that worked with Adolf Hitler to develop and deploy deadly chemical weapons against humanity,” joked Mike Adams, the Health Ranger.

Did the U.S. government support DuPont and other Nazi-sympathizing companies during WWII?

What really bothers Feldman is his perception that many U.S. firms maintained relationships with the Nazis during WWII, “undisturbed and even with the tacit support of the U.S. administration despite the growing threat of Hitler’s regime to the welfare of Europe and the West.”

One of these companies was IBM, which reportedly developed the technology that the Nazis used to keep track of prisoners as they were shuffled around between concentration camps.

As we recently reported, IBM is actually now working on “new and improved” blockchain versions of these older technologies that the New World Order will presumably use to maintain ultimate control over people’s lives.

For more news about how major corporations are actively developing technologies to enslave the planet, be sure to visit PopulationControlNews.com.

Other U.S. companies that Feldman says worked with the Nazis include Standard Oil, General Motors, Ford, ITT, and Union Banking, the latter of which is said to have helped Germany secure the loans it needed to fund equipment and supplies throughout the war.

“Without the mobilisation of corporate America for Nazi Germany, it is very doubtful whether Hitler could have started the war, doubtful whether he would have succeeded in rehabilitating the German economy – certainly not at the speed and strength he achieved in the ’30s,” Feldman contends.

Feldman also says he finds it “doubtful” that any historian, including himself, will ever fully understand how the corporate executives in charge of these companies “could give so much help to such a strong, cruel and fanatic enemy … It’s also doubtful whether we’ll be able to understand why every one of them avoided punishment.”

For more related news, be sure to check out Fascism.news.

Sources for this article include:
SputnikNews.com
Haaretz.com
NaturalNews.com
NaturalNews.com

***

The Guardian

Mel Gibson casting in Rothchild comedy sparks outrage

News of the film, set among the New York super-rich, attracts criticism in wake of the actor’s previous antisemitism controversies

Andrew Pulver

May 14, 2019

Rothchild, starring Mel Gibson, is described ‘an action-packed cautionary tale on wealth and power’. Photograph: Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images
A wave of condemnation has greeted the announcement of a new film starring Mel Gibson, in which the actor is due to play a character called Whitelaw Rothchild, the patriarch of a wealthy family.

The film, called Rothchild, is being offered to buyers at Cannes, and is described as a “dark comedy” and “an action-packed cautionary tale on wealth and power”. Shia LaBeouf also stars, playing family outcast Becket Rothchild, who has to supplant nine other family members to claim an inheritance. The script – which on the face of it bears a distinct resemblance to the 1949 British comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets – is set among a group of the New York super-rich, whose surname is nearly identical to the celebrated Jewish banking dynasty who are ubiquitous as the target of antisemitic tropes.

While the ethnicity of the family in the film has not been specified in reports, its similarity to the Rothschild name has sparked outrage because of the series of incidents that contributed to Gibson’s lengthy ostracism by Hollywood. In 2006, he launched an antisemitic tirade against a police officerafter he was arrested in California; he later apologised. In 2012, he was accused of “hating Jews” by screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, which Gibson denied. Two years later, he was recorded using racially abusive language in a voicemail message to his former partner Oksana Grigorieva. And, in 2016, he described the continuing controversy over his 2006 outburst as “unfair” and “a dim thing in the past”.

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg described the casting decision as “chilling”, while New Yorker critic Emily Nussbaum wrote on social media: “Mel Gibson seems like an unrepentant bigot to me & it’s honestly shocking to me that he would be in this movie.” In response to another recently announced project, Fatman, in which Gibson will play “a rowdy Santa Claus”, actor and director Seth Rogen tweeted: “Ho-ho-holocaust denier.”

***

MailOnline

Rise of the machines: Hulking 165-pound humanoid robot delicately 'walks a tightrope' of tiny blocks in eerily similar fashion to a human walking along a treacherous path

• The robot is named Atlas and uses a 'path planning algorithm' to trace its route

• Researchers trained Atlas to balance its way across narrow terrain effortlessly

• They used LIDAR, which uses a laser to measure the distance between objects

• The team hope that the technology could be used for bomb squads and rescue missions because of its ability to move through uneven and narrow terrain

By VICTORIA BELL FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 10:24, 10 May 2019 | UPDATED: 11:17, 10 May 2019

Fascinating footage shows a robot using autonomous planning to precisely move along a treacherous path of narrow cinder blocks.

Researchers trained the 165-pound 'humanoid robot' to walk across narrow terrain by using human-like control, perception and planning algorithms.

The video shows the robot, called Atlas, carefully moving across a balance beam using body control created using LIDAR.

This system uses a pulsed laser to measure the distance between objects and this is procssed by the machine so it can step correctly on the narrow terrain.

The researchers, from the Institute for Human & Machine Cognition (IHMC) in Florida, hope that the tech could be used for bomb squads or rescue missions.

At first glance, a robot walking between two platforms across several cinder blocks may look like a simple feat but many actions that humans can do with ease are challenging for robots.

Our complex joints and an in-built natural balance system allows us to navigate such obstacles with ease but this is difficult to replicate with a machine.

As well as that, our small, narrow feet allow us to move around tight obstacles with ease, or step over barriers, all while supporting ourselves.

With Atlas, the LIDAR system builds a map of the area it's going to travel across, and then uses a 'path planning algorithm' to determine each step it should take.

It is able to balance by using angular momentum and with its bipedal feet and human-like joints which give it ranges of motion.

Currently it is successful with about half of its attempts, according to IHMC, but the company is already working to increase that rate by improving the robot's balance and the range of motion in its joints.

Perhaps the most intriguing setting for using bipedal humanoid robots is extraterrestrial.

The team say that when humans colonise other planets remotely operated robots like Atlas could go before that to develop a habitat suitable for human beings.

Being able to send robots that look and move like us, they said, would give scientists a major advantage.

Jerry Pratt, a research scientist at IHMC Robotics told NDTV he believes a bipedal humanoid robot would be immediately useful for dangerous emergency scenarios.

Its ability to negotiate different terrains could make it ideal for combing through a collapsed building or an avalanche, where a wheeled robot would get stuck.

'We plan to increase the rate of success by adding balance using angular momentum and by better considering joint ranges of motion,' a statement on the company website reads.

'Narrow terrain is difficult due to the need to do some ''cross-over'' steps, which are tricky due to limited range of motion in the hip joint, and also due to having a small polygon of support when one foot is directly in front of the other.'

The advantage of being bipedal and humanoid is that your mobility has the potential to be really good,' Mr Pratt said.

'If you think about everywhere a human go can go it's really incredible. We can climb mountains or go into caves or hike through snow or climb stairs. There aren't many places we can't go.'

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newstimes

Beijing calls for a 'people's war' against the US as Trump threatens tariffs on another $300 billion of Chinese goods in all-out trade battle

Alexandra Ma

May 14, 2019

A woman walks past a bank electronic board showing the Hong Kong share index at Hong Kong Stock Exchange Tuesday, May 14, 2019. Shares opened moderately lower in Asia on Tuesday after a dismal day on Wall Street.
The US-China trade war has dramatically escalated over the past few days, with both sides announcing tariff increases on billions of dollars' worth of each other's goods.

• Chinese state media — which functions as a Communist Party mouthpiece — issued a series of rabble-rousing statements on Monday accusing the US of "greed and arrogance" and calling for a "people's war" against it.

• President Donald Trump's administration on Monday night threatened to impose tariffs of up to 25% on another $300 billion worth of Chinese goods.

• If such tariffs were to be imposed, almost all Chinese imports to the US would be subject to tariffs.

• Trump tweeted on Tuesday that his "respect and friendship" with Chinese President Xi Jinping was "unlimited" but that "this must be a great deal for the United States or it just doesn't make any sense."

• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The US-China trade war continues to heat up, with Beijing calling for a "people's war" against Washington and President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on another $300 billion worth of Chinese goods.

In a series of editorials and op-ed articles published Monday, Chinese state media slammed what it labeled the Trump administration's "greed and arrogance" and called for a "people's war" against it. Beijing's state-run media effectively serves as a mouthpiece for the Communist Party.

"The most important thing is that in the China-US trade war, the US side fights for greed and arrogance ... and morale will break at any point. The Chinese side is fighting back to protect its legitimate interests," the nationalistic Global Times tabloid wrote in a Chinese-language editorial carried by Xinhua News Agency.

"The trade war in the US is the creation of one person and one administration, but it affects that country's entire population. In China, the entire country and all its people are being threatened. For us, this is a real 'people's war.'"

The rabble-rousing statements come amid an intense escalation of the trade war over the past week. Here's what happened:

• On Friday, Trump increased tariffs on $200 billion worth of imports from China, to 25% from 10%. Here are all the affected Chinese products.

• On Monday, China retaliated by saying it would raise duties on $60 billion worth of American goods starting June 1, resulting in duties of 5% to 25%. Here are the affected American goods.

• Later Monday, the US Trade Representative's Office published a list of about $300 billion worth of Chinese imports, noting that it proposed slapping tariffs of up to 25% on those products. Those goods include live purebred breeding horses, meat, condensed milk, tobacco, canoe paddles, and articles of clothing.

If the Trump administration were to impose the new tariffs on $300 billion of additional goods, it would mean that $500 billion worth of Chinese goods coming into the US would be subject to tariffs.

That figure represents nearly all Chinese imports to the US. The US imported $540 billion worth of goods from China in 2018, according to Census Bureau data.

The Global Times' Monday editorial also effectively accused the Trump administration of misleading Americans about the victims of US tariffs.

It singled out an interview that Larry Kudlow, Trump's top economics adviser, gave to "Fox News Sunday" in which he said that US consumers would also suffer from the trade war, contradicting Trump's claim that China would single-handedly foot the bill.
During prime time on Monday night, the state broadcaster CCTV also aired a statement saying that China would "fight for a new world."

"As President Xi Jinping pointed out, the Chinese economy is a sea, not a small pond," the anchor Kang Hui said on his 7 p.m. news show, as cited by CNN. "A rainstorm can destroy a small pond, but it cannot harm the sea. After numerous storms, the sea is still there." That clip went viral on Chinese social media, CNN reported.

In an English-language version of its Monday editorial, the tabloid also said: "The US tariff moves are very much like spraying bullets. They will cause a lot of self-inflicted harm and are hard to sustain in the long term."

"China, on the other hand, is going to aim with precision, trying to avoid hurting itself," it said.

Trump tweeted on Tuesday that his "respect and friendship" with Chinese President Xi Jinping was "unlimited" but that "this must be a great deal for the United States or it just doesn't make any sense."

He added on Monday that he would meet Xi next month at the G20 summit. "That'll be, I think, probably a very fruitful meeting," he said.

***

Alt-Market.com

America Will Lose The Trade War Because That Is What Globalists Want To Happen

Brandon Smith

May 15, 2019

Times of great political and social crisis can almost always be linked back to a common root cause – false paradigms. There are many people out there who have no clue what this phrase means, just as they have no clue what the phrase “controlled opposition” means. Some of these people are new activists to the liberty movement who recently joined because of the fervor of the Trump presidential campaign. They think the world of sovereignty and nationalism revolves around Trump, because frankly, they have been duped by a false paradigm themselves.

False paradigms are a base tactic of what is known as “4^th Generation Warfare”. The purpose of 4^th Gen warfare is described in the document 'From Psyop To Mindwar'. A document circulated within the DoD by the 7th Psychological Operations Group and written by now former General Paul Vallely (spelled “Valley” in the document) and now former Lt. Colonel Michael Aquino (a self professed satanist, believe it or not). I recommend it as a means to understand how globalists tend to think, how they use division to conquer populations, and to come to terms with the fact that these people are not held in check by empathy, morality or reason.

As far as 4^th Gen warfare is concerned, Mindwar describes a method of psychological manipulation and propaganda used by governments and militaries as a means to turn a target population against itself. The goal is to win a war against a group of people by causing them to destroy each other so that the government does not have to combat them directly.

False paradigms are a premier tool for pursuing this outcome. They are achieved by dividing a population through false leadership, fake and sometimes real outside threats, as well as manufactured crisis events. Globalist institutions and the political puppets they control use false paradigms as a means to distract the public away from their criminal endeavors. While we are focused on the political Left, or the political Right, or the Russians, or the Iranians, or the Chinese, they are exploiting our fear and doubt to gain more centralization and more power.

For globalists, the great prize is, of course, OPEN global economic management (rather than covert management), a one world currency and cashless society, as well global government. They want a veritable worldwide feudal plantation state – and they want the masses to embrace it willingly, or perhaps even beg for it. To obtain this prize, they will need a considerable economic disaster. The US economy and the dollar would have to be undermined, for Americans would not consent to global governance as long as our society remains relatively affluent and comfortable.

But how is this being accomplished by the elites...? And, what does the trade war have to do with their plans?

Global Banking Elites And The Controlled Demolition Of The US

I have been writing extensively on the controlled demolition of the US economy for some time now. In January of 2018 I predicted in my article 'Party While You Can – Central Bank Ready To Pop The Everything Bubble' that Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve would pursue policy tightening and would continue until the bubble in fundamentals, corporate debt, consumer debt, housing, retail, stock markets, etc. collapsed. So far I have been proven correct; the fundamentals are plunging, and only stock markets remain. In the 2^nd quarter of 2019 the Fed is still cutting assets exponentially from its balance sheet and still refuses to pull interest rates back from their neutral rate of inflation, despite the predictions of many in the mainstream and alternative media.

The Fed has used the tactic of addictive stimulus measures and artificially low interest rates to create massive financial bubbles in the past. And, they almost always use tightening policies in times of economic weakness to deliberately pop those bubbles. For example, this is exactly what happened at the onset of the Great Depression. As former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke openly admitted in 2002 in an address in honor of Milton Friedman:

"In short, according to Friedman and Schwartz, because of institutional changes and misguided doctrines, the banking panics of the Great Contraction were much more severe and widespread than would have normally occurred during a downturn.

Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again."

And yet, it IS happening again today. As the economy nosedives, banking institutions buy up more hard assets and consolidate more power, and each time global economic management is suggested as a possible solution to the very crisis they created.

My question has never been “Will there be a crash?” A crash of the US is mathematically inevitable, it is happening now in accelerated fashion, and has been progressing in various ways since 2008. Instead my question has always been “How do the globalists plan to get away with it?”

In my article 'Trump Trade Wars A Perfect Smokescreen For A Market Crash', published in March 2018, I outlined exactly how they plan to get away with it. In that article I examined the strange number of similarities in policy and politics between Donald Trump and Herbert Hoover, including the use of large scale tariffs right before the collapse of the US financial system. While it was the Federal Reserve's interest rate increases into weakness that exacerbated and prolonged the Great Depression for many years, it was Herbert Hoover's policies (and sometimes the gold standard) that were blamed for the crash.

In other words, Donald Trump is following almost the exact same path as Herbert Hoover, and Trump's trade war with China is being used by the banking elites as cover for their sabotage of the US economy. In the end, it will be Trump and all of his “populist” followers that will get the blame for the destabilization of our financial structure. The central bankers have a perfect scapegoat.

Trump And The False Left/Right Paradigm.

But how could the banking elites and globalists possibly predict Trump's behavior in order to take advantage of it? Well, if you look at Trump's background as well as the number of elites he has placed within his own cabinet, the reality if the situation becomes clear: Trump is a puppet, and always has been.

In my article 'Trump Is A Pied Piper For The New World Order' I outlined Trump's history with the banking elites, including his relationship with Rothschild banking agent Wilber Ross, who bailed Trump out of his debts and saved him from the effects of bankruptcy in the 1990's. Trump's biggest campaign promise in 2016 was to “drain the swamp” in Washington D.C. of the financial elitists and globalists that Hillary Clinton was so closely tied to. But, when he entered the White House, he made Wilber Ross his Secretary of Commerce, hired on Goldman Sachs goons like Steven Mnuchin and Gary Cohn, and he has brought warmongering psychopathic think tank members like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo into his cabinet.

The globalists don't have to predict Trump's behavior, they dictate Trump's behavior. Thus, the false left/right paradigm reigns supreme once again; the same paradigm many Trump followers thought they were escaping by rallying against a Clinton presidency.

Current Trump cheerleaders completely ignore this fact, however. I have not seen a single one of them confront the issue of Trump's cabinet or his associations with the Rothschilds. They either ignore it outright, or they claim Trump is “keeping his enemies close” or “using their expertise to free America”. This is insanity, but it showcases the power that false paradigms have. Conservatives were so afraid of Clinton that they jumped on the bandwagon of Trump's controlled opposition administration, and they refuse to admit they have been conned.

How have globalists benefited from Trump being in the White House, though?

Trump has gone on to attach his presidency so closely to the performance of the economy and primarily stock markets, that any crash now will undoubtedly be blamed on him. This is strange behavior if you consider his statements during his campaign, including his assertion that the Fed was deliberately keeping interest rates low to protect Obama, and that the stock market was a giant fraudulent bubble. Today, Trump is demanding that the Fed funds rate be lowered and that stimulus be renewed, and, he has been Tweeting incessantly about how the economy under his watch is the "greatest ever".

To those who actually track the health of the US economy, Trump's statements might seem delusional. If you understand that Trump is controlled opposition and that he is playing the scripted role of a bumbling villain, his statements make perfect sense. The US economy is NOT the greatest it has ever been, in fact, it is the worst it has been since the crash of 2008, as I evidenced in detail in my article 'The Crash In US Economic Fundamentals Is Accelerating'. Trump is wrapping himself around the implosion of the Everything Bubble as a mascot of fiscal destruction, and he's trying to drag all conservatives with him.

China And The False East/West Paradigm

The other side of the control mechanism for a crash of this magnitude is on the other side of the world – China. It is not only Trump that has to act a certain way in order to cover for the crash of the Everything Bubble, China must also play its role. The false East/West paradigm is perhaps the most pervasive of all false paradigms, for even many in the liberty movement think that governments in China or Russia are opposed to the elites in the US and Europe. This is simply not true.

China in particular has a long time relationship with Western globalists. In fact, modern China was essentially built by them.

The Rockefeller family and the Rockefeller Foundation have been influencing Chinese social and political developments since the late 1800's. This started as seemingly innocuous, with the foundation initiating social and health related programs in rural areas, but as noted by historians with access to the Rockefeller Archives, the Rockefellers were not seeking to display their capacity for philanthropic charity, but pursuing wide reaching influence in Chinese society and politics. For more information, I highly recommend reading Frank Ninkovich's study of the Rockefeller's dominance in China for the past century in the Journal Of American History.

China's central bank is currently linked to the Bank For international Settlements, which is often referred to as the “central bank of central banks” and as admitted in an article for Harpers in 1983, the BIS essentially writes policy for all member banks – this means the Chinese central bank AND the Federal Reserve are both controlled by the globalists at the BIS. This is even more evident in recent years as all major central banks have operated with an odd level of coordination to prop up the stock markets of other nations, including stock markets of nations that are supposedly in conflict.

China also now works closely with the IMF – the Yuan has been inducted into the SDR basket system, and China has called on multiple occasions for the SDR basket to replace the US dollar as the world reserve structure. The IMF is openly discussing the introduction of a cashless digital currency system based on blockchain technology, which I believe will be the likely replacement for ALL currencies when the time comes.

This means the trade war is a farce. When it comes to the elites of China and the US, there is no division and no conflict. They all want the same thing - global centralization.

The Trade War Smokescreen

For many years I have warned that the next World War would be an economic world war between the East and West, and that this war would be engineered by globalists as a mass distraction while they introduced their one world economic system. The crux of that economic war would be the eventual dumping of US treasuries by foreign central banks as well as the dollar as the world reserve currency.

What many pro-trade war people don't seem to realize is that the dollar's world reserve status was part of the original deal with China. China gained a trade surplus and access to US markets, the US gained a cheap labor pool, access to cheap goods and our currency was accepted by the Chinese as the foundation of international trade. But this dynamic no longer serves globalist interests in the new system they hope to create.

As described in an article published in the Rothschild run magazine The Economist in 1988, the US economy has to be brought down to pave the way for the new global currency system. Globalist Mohamed El-Erian confirmed this plan in a 2017 op-ed for The Guardian. And, as globalist George Soros stated in 2009, China is intended to take a larger role in the IMF and become the economic engine for the "new world order", while the US is set to take a back seat in global affairs as the rest of the world moves away from the dollar.

This might be why US 10 year treasury auctions are seeing dismal results, and why the Chinese are now willing to threaten the dumping of US T-bonds through their state run media. China has NOT folded to US tariffs as so many people have been predicting for the past year. In fact, China has dug in even further.

China is the number one exporter/importer in the world. They now set the standard for international trade, not the US. If China follows through on threats to dump US treasuries, or if they dump the dollar as the world reserve, then most if not all of their trading partners will do the same. The consequences would be devastating for the US economy, which has a minimal manufacturing base and is utterly reliant on the international acceptance of the dollar to keep prices low and to prop up what's left of our financial structure.

While proponents of the trade war keep insisting that manufacturing will come back to the US, this still has not materialized. Why would corporations spend all the money to rebuild factories in the US when they can simply stay in Asia and use the existing factories and cheap labor? There is no incentive for them to come back. If tariffs go higher, they can easily raise prices on consumers to support their bottom line.

The US is being set up for a spectacular fall. Those that claim China would never make such a move don't understand the Chinese economy. The US market is only 18% of Chinese exports, and US consumption has been declining. The vast majority of China's GDP comes from domestic consumption, and the claim that China is dependent on US markets to survive is one of the most widely perpetuated lies of the past decade. The Chinese will take a hit to their economy, certainly, but nowhere near the hit the US economy will take if they cut off the dollar as the primary trade mechanism.

The trade war only makes sense if you look at it from the globalist perspective. China will get hurt to an extent, the US will suffer an economic disaster it will never recover from, and only the globalists truly benefit. With tensions increasing, probably through the end of 2019, I suspect the Federal Reserve will increase cuts to their balance sheet under cover of the trade war. I also suspect that China's central bank will finally cut off stimulus measures which have been keeping global stocks afloat for the past four months. This will eventually trigger the crash of markets on top of already plunging fundamentals.

The US will lose the trade war, Trump and conservatives will be blamed for the collapse, China will already be pre-positioned as the next economic engine for the world, and the IMF and BIS will introduce their one world currency system as the solution to the problem they created. Whether or not they succeed in this plan will greatly depend on whether or not enough people set aside their biases and accept that the whole thing was a farce from the very beginning.

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SPUTNIK

Bases in Almost Every Direction: HERE is Where US Outposts Near Iran are Located

May 11, 2019

Tensions between Washington and Tehran escalated sharply this week after the US announced the deployment of a carrier strike group to the region and warned that Washington would hit back at Iran with "unrelenting force" if the Islamic Republic threatened US interests.

The Pentagon doubled down on the deployment of its carrier strike group on Friday, saying it would beef up its Middle Eastern theatre command's assets with additional Patriot missile defence batteries, an amphibious assault ship full of Marines and an amphibious dock ship to complement the recently deployed USS Abraham Lincoln and several nuclear-capable B-52 strategic bombers.

Iran has dismissed both Washington's threats and President Trump's simultaneous offer to negotiatewith the country's leadership, with a deputy commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards saying the US was mistaken if it felt it could intimidate Tehran into talks with threats and sanctions.

Senior US officials have claimed that the troop buildup was a response to Iranian behaviour. Acting Secretary of Defence Patrick Shanahan calledthe carrier deployment a "prudent repositioning of assets inresponse to indication of a credible threat" by Iranian forces. National Security Adviser John Bolton said the move was a reaction "to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings," and was aimed at sending "a clear and unmistakable message to [Tehran] that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force."

However, in light of the vast network of bases that the US has surrounding Iran from virtually all directions, it's worth asking what the US's real goal is in the present escalation. Because even without those fresh deployments, the US already has thousands of troops surrounding the Islamic Republic.

The US Navy's 5th Fleet, whose area of responsibility includes the Middle East and North Africa, has at least 7,000 US troops at its permanent base in Bahrain. In Kuwait, meanwhile, the US Army's Central Command has its forward command post, where some 13,000 troops are stationed.

Abu Dhabi's Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates contains 5,000 plus US personnel, while Qatar's massive Al Udeid Air Base has roughly US 10,000 troops.

Along with the bases, the US has special forces troops operating in Yemen, while Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan station thousands more troops, although some politicians in Baghdad have recently threatened to evict the estimated 5,200 troops based in their country.

Along with the bases, the US also has access to a large series of smaller 'cooperative security locations', also known as 'lily pads' with 200 troops or less, as well as access to airfields and ports in countries including Oman, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt.

On Saturday, Iranian Ambassador to the UN Majid Takht Ravanchi brushed aside US allegations about Iran posing a threat to US forces in the Middle East, accusing the Trump administration of using "fake intelligence."

"These are all allegations which are being produced by the same people who, in the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq, did the same," Ravanchi said, likely referring to John Bolton's role in pushing the invasion during his work as an adviser in the administration of President George W. Bush.

Given the presence of US troops at bases in virtually every one of Tehran's neighbours, perhaps it's Iran's leaders who should be the ones complaining about "credible threats" and "escalatory indications."

***

Zero Hedge

Escobar: Iran Squeezed Between Imperial Psychos & European Cowards

Tyler Durden

May 13, 2019

Authored by Pepe Escobar via Consortiumnews.com,

The Trump administration unilaterally cheated on the 2015 multinational, UN-endorsed JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal. It has imposed an illegal, worldwide financial and energy blockade on all forms of trade with Iran — from oil and gas to exports of iron, steel, aluminum and copper. For all practical purposes, and in any geopolitical scenario, this is a declaration of war.

Successive U.S. governments have ripped international law to shreds; ditching the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is only the latest instance. It doesn’t matter that Tehran has fulfilled all its commitments to the deal — according to UN inspectors. Once the leadership in Tehran concluded that the U.S. sanctions tsunami is fiercer than ever, it decided to begin partially withdrawing from the deal.

President Hassan Rouhani was adamant: Iran has not left the JCPOA — yet. Tehran’s measures are legal under the framework of articles 26 and 36 of the JCPOA — and European officials were informed in advance. But it’s clear the EU3 (Germany, France, Britain), who have always insisted on their vocal support for the JCPOA, must work seriously to alleviate the U.S.-provoked economic disaster to Iran if Tehran has any incentive to continue to abide by the agreement.

Protests in front of former U.S. embassy in Tehran after U.S. decision to withdraw from JCPOA, May 8, 2018. (Hossein Mersadi via Wikimedia Commons)

Russia and China — the pillars of Eurasia integration, to which Iran adheres — support Tehran’s position. This was discussed extensively in Moscow by Sergey Lavrov and Iran’s Javad Zarif, perhaps the world’s top two foreign ministers.

At the same time, it’s politically naïve to believe the Europeans will suddenly grow a backbone.

The comfortable assumption in Berlin, Paris and London was that Tehran could not afford to leave the JCPOA even if it was not receiving any of the economic rewards promised in 2015. Yet now the EU3 are facing the hour of truth.

It’s hard to expect anything meaningful coming from an enfeebled Chancellor Angela Merkel, with Berlin already targeted by Washington’s trade ire; a Brexit-paralyzed Britain; and a massively unpopular President Emmanuel Macron in France already threatening to impose his own sanctions if Tehran does not agree to limit its ballistic missile program. Tehran will never allow inspections over its thriving missile industry – and this was never part of the JCPOA to begin with.

As it stands, the EU3 are not buying Iranian oil. They are meekly abiding by the U.S. banking and oil/gas sanctions — which are now extended to manufacturing sectors — and doing nothing to protect Iran from its nasty effects. The implementation of INSTEX, the SWIFT alternative for trade with Iran, is languishing. Besides expressing lame “regrets” about the U.S. sanctions, the EU3 are de facto playing the game on the side of U.S., Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates; and by extension against Russia, China and Iran.

Rise of the Imperial Psychos

As Tehran de facto kicked the ball to the European court, both EU3 options are dire.

To meaningfully defend the JCPOA will invite a ballistic reaction from the Trump administration.

To behave like poodles — the most probable course of action — means emboldening even more the psychopaths doubling as imperial functionaries bent on a hot war against Iran at all costs; Koch brothers Big Oil asset and enraptured evangelist, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and paid Mujahideen-e Khalq asset and notorious intel manipulator, National Security Advisor John Bolton.

The Pompeo-Bolton gangster maneuver is hardly Bismarck’s Realpolitik. It consists of relentlessly pushing Tehran to make a mistake, any mistake, in terms of “violating” its obligations under the JCPOA, so that this may be sold to gullible American public opinion as the proverbial “threat” to the “rules-based order” doubling as a casus belli.

There’s one thing the no-holds-barred U.S. economic war against Iran has managed to achieve: internal unity in the Islamic Republic. Team Rouhani’s initial aim for the JCPOA was to open up to Western trade (trade with Asia was always on) and somewhat curtail the power of the IRGC, or Revolutionary Guards, which control vast sectors of the Iranian economy.

Washington’s economic war proved instead the IRGC was right all along, echoing the finely-tuned geopolitical sentiment of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who always emphasized the Americans cannot be trusted, ever.

And as much as Washington has branded the IRGC a “terrorist organization,” Tehran replied in kind, branding CENTCOM the same.

Independent Persian Gulf oil traders dismiss the notion that the kleptocrat House of Saud — de facto run by Jared “of Arabia” Kushner’s Whatsapp pal Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), the Saudi crown prince – holds up to 2.5 million barrels of oil a day in spare capacity capable of replacing Iran’s 2 million barrels of exports (out of 3.45 million of total daily production). The House of Saud seems moreinterested in hiking oil prices for Asian customers.

Faulty Blockade

Washington’s energy trade blockade of Iran is bound to fail.

China will continue to buy its 650,000 barrels a day – and may even buy more. Multiple Chinese companies trade technology and industrial services for Iranian oil.

Pakistan, Iraq and Turkey — all bordering Iran — will continue to buy Iranian high-quality light crude by every method of payment (including gold) and transportation available, formal or informal. Baghdad’s trade relationship with Tehran will continue to thrive.

As economic suffocation won’t suffice, Plan B is — what else — the threat of a hot war.

It’s by now established that the info, in fact rumors, about alleged Iranian maneuvers to attack U.S. interests in the Gulf was relayed to Bolton by the Mossad, at the White House, with Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben Shabbat personally briefing Bolton.

Everyone is aware of the corollary: a “reposition of assets” (in Pentagonese) — from the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group deployment to four B-52 bombers landing in Al Udeid Air base in Qatar, all part of a “warning” to Iran.

A pre-war roaring crescendo now engulfs the Lebanese fronta s well as the Iranian front.

Reasons for Psychotic Rage

Iran’s GDP is similar to Thailand’s, and its military budget is similar to Singapore’s. Bullying Iran is a geopolitical and geo-economic absurdity. Iran may be an emerging Global South actor — it could easily be a member of the G20 — but can never be construed as a “threat” to the U.S.

Yet Iran provokes psychopathic imperial functionaries to a paroxysm of rage for three serious reasons. Neocons never mind that trying to destroy Iraq cost over $6 trillion — and it was a major war crime, a political disaster, and an economic abyss all rolled into one. Trying to destroy Iran will cost untold trillions more.

The most glaring reason for the irrational hatred is the fact the Islamic Republic is one of the very few nations on the planet consistently defying the hegemon — for four decades now.

The second reason is that Iran, just like Venezuela — and this is a combined war front — have committed the supreme anathema; trading on energy bypassing the petrodollar, the foundation stone of U.S. hegemony.

The third (invisible) reason is that to attack Iran is to disable emerging Eurasia integration, just like using NSA spying to ultimately put Brazil in the bag was an attack on Latin American integration.

The Strait of Hormuz would never need to be blocked if all the oil Iran is able to export is bought by China, other Asian clients and even Russia — which could relabel it. But Tehran wouldn’t blink on blocking Hormuz if faced with total economic strangulation.

According to a dissident U.S. intel expert, “the United States is at a clear disadvantage in that if the Strait of Hormuz is shut the U.S. collapses. But if the U.S. can divert Russia from defending Iran, then Iran can be attacked and Russia will have accomplished nothing, as the neocons do not want detente with Russia and China. Trump does want detente but the Deep State does not intend to permit it.”

Assuming this scenario is correct, the usual suspects in the United States government are trying to divert Putin from the Strait of Hormuz question while keeping Trump weakened, as the neocons proceed 24/7 on the business of strangling Iran. It’s hard to see Putin falling for this not exactly elaborate trap.

Not Bluffing

So what happens next? Professor Mohammad Marandi at the Faculty of World Studies of the University of Tehran offers quite a sobering perspective: “After 60 days Iran will push things even further. I don’t think the Iranians are bluffing. They will also be pushing back at the Saudis and the Emiratis by different means.”

Marandi, ominously, sees “further escalation” ahead:

“Iranians have been preparing for war with the Unites States ever since the Iraq invasion in 2003. After what they’ve seen in Libya, in Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, they know that the Americans and Europeans are utterly brutal. The whole shore of the Persian Gulf on the Iranian side and the Gulf of Oman is full of tunnels and underground high-tech missiles. The Persian Gulf is full of ships equipped with highly developed sea-to-sea missiles. If there is real war, all the oil and gas facilities in the region will be destroyed, all the tankers will be destroyed.”

And if that show comes to pass, Marandi regards the Strait of Hormuz as the “sideshow”:

“The Americans will be driven out of Iraq. Iraq exports 4 million barrels of oil a day; that would probably come to an end, through strikes and other means. It would be catastrophic for the Americans. It would be catastrophic for the world – and for Iran as well. But the Americans would simply not win.”

So as Marandi explains it — and Iranian public opinion now largely agrees — the Islamic Republic has leverage because they know “the Americans can’t afford to go to war. Crazies like Pompeo and Bolton may want it, but many in the establishment don’t.”

Tehran may have developed a modified MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) framework as leverage, mostly to push Trump ally MbS to cool down. “Assuming,” adds Marandi, “the madmen don’t get the upper hand, and if they do, then it’s war. But for the time being, I thinks that’s highly unlikely.”

All Options on the Table?

In Cold War 2.0 terms, from Central Asia to the Eastern Mediterranean and from the Indian Ocean to the Caspian Sea, Tehran is able to count on quite a set of formal and informal alliances. That not only centers on the Beirut-Damascus-Baghdad-Tehran-Herat axis, but also includes Turkey and Qatar. And most important of all, the top actors on the Eurasian integration chessboard: the Russia and China in strategic partnership.

When Zarif met Lavrov last week in Moscow, they discussed virtually everything: Syria (they negotiate together in the Astana, now Nur-Sultan process), the Caspian, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (of which Iran will become a member), the JCPOA and Venezuela.

The Trump administration was dragged kicking and screaming to meet Kim Jong-Un at the same table because of the DPRK’s intercontinental ballistic missile tests. And then Kim ordered extra missile tests because, in his own words, as quoted by KCNA, “genuine peace and security of the country are guaranteed only by the strong physical force capable of defending its sovereignty.”

Global South Watching

The overwhelming majority of Global South nations are watching the U.S. neocon offensive to ultimately strangle “the Iranian people”, aware more than ever that Iran may be bullied to extinction because it does not posses a nuclear deterrent. The IRGC has reached the same conclusion.

That would mean the death of the JCPOA – and the Return of the Living Dead of “all options on the table.”

But then, there’ll be twists and turns in the Art of the (Demented) Deal. So what if, and it’s a major “if”, Donald Trump is being held hostage by his pet psychopaths?

Let The Dealer speak:

“We hope we don’t have to do anything with regard to the use of military force…We can make a deal, a fair deal. … We just don’t want them to have nuclear weapons. Not too much to ask. And we would help put them back into great shape. They’re in bad shape right now. I look forward to the day where we can actually help Iran. We’re not looking to hurt Iran. I want them to be strong and great and have a great economy… We have no secrets. And they can be very, very strong, financially. They have great potential.”

Then again, Ayatollah Khamenei said: the Americans cannot be trusted, ever.

STRANGE SOUNDS

Mystery: Water turns BLOOD RED around Hormuz Island in IRAN for unknown reason (videos and pictures)

May 16, 2019

Nobody knows what’s currently going on with the water around Hormuz River in Iran. But one thing is sure… the water around Hormoz in the Strait of Hormuz is currently turning BLOOD RED!

Article

MailOnline

'We are on the cusp of a full-scale confrontation with the enemy': Iranian general issues stark warning as US pulls all non-essential staff out of Iraq amid worsening crisis

• All 'non-emergency' US government employees told to leave Iraq immediately

• Comes after US said it had detected threats from Iran and proxy forces in region

• UK embassy staff are 'operating as normal' with 'no plans' to withdraw them

• Relations between Tehran and US have drastically deteriorated in recent days

• President Trump has warned Iran would 'suffer greatly' if it enraged Washington

• Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned that enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels would not be a difficult task for the country

By AP and JULIAN ROBINSON FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 09:24, 15 May 2019 | UPDATED: 21:17, 15 May 2019

Major General Hossein Salami, pictured, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard said his men 'were on the cusp of a full-scale confrontation with the enemy'

Article

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MailOnline

EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Air Force has deployed 20 missiles that could zap the military electronics of North Korea or Iran with super powerful microwaves, rendering their military capabilities virtually useless with NO COLLATERAL DAMAGE

• Known as the Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), the missiles were built by Boeing's Phantom Works for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory

• The microwave weapons can be launched into enemy airspace at low altitude and emit sharp pulses of high power microwave energy that disable any electronic devices targeted

• Mary Lou Robinson, the chief of the High Power Microwave Division of the Air Force Research Lab has confirmed to DailyMail.com that the missiles are now operational and ready to take out any target

• While North Korea or Iran may attempt to shield their equipment, U.S. officials doubt that would be effective against CHAMP.

• The project has been advancing secretly ever since the Air Force successfully tested a missile equipped with high-powered microwave energy in 2012

By RONALD KESSLER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 17:42, 16 May 2019 | UPDATED: 21:06, 16 May 2019

Ronald Kessler, a former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, is the New York Times Bestselling Author of 'The Trump White House: Changing the Rules of the Game,' The Secrets of the FBI,' 'The First Family Detail,' and the 'CIA at War.'

The U.S. Air Force has deployed at least 20 missiles that could zap the military electronics of North Korea or Ira with high-power microwaves, rendering their military capabilities virtually useless without causing any fatalities, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively.

Known as the Counter-Electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP), the missiles were built by Boeing's Phantom Works for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and tested successfully in 2012. They have not been operation until now.

The microwave weapons are fitted into an air-launched cruise missile and delivered from B-52 bombers. With a range of 700 miles, they can fly into enemy airspace at low altitude and emit sharp pulses of high power microwave (HPM) energy that fry computer chips, disabling any electronic devices targeted by the missiles with causing any collateral damage.

Mary Lou Robinson, the chief of the High Power Microwave Division of the Air Force Research Lab at Kirtland Air Force Base, has confirmed to DailyMail.com that the missiles are now operational and ready to take out any target.

Graphic shows the Counter-electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project (CHAMP) missle taking out a target. In a test in the Utah desert, the missile successfully defeated electronic targets with little to no collateral damage

The missile is equipped with an electromagnetic pulse cannon. This uses a super-powerful microwave oven to generate a concentrated beam of energy. The energy causes voltage surges in electronic equipment, rendering them useless before surge protectors have the chance to react

The project has been advancing secretly ever since the Air Force successfully tested a missile equipped with HPM in 2012.

In the test, the CHAMP missile flew over a two-story building on the Utah Test and Firing Range.

The building in the west Utah desert was crammed with computers and security and surveillance systems. The microwaves took down the compound's entire spectrum of electronic systems, including video cameras set up to film the test, without damaging anything else.

'We hit every target we wanted to,' Boeing's CHAMP Program Manager Keith Colman said in a company press release. 'Today we made science fiction into science fact.'

Until the announcement of the successful test, the project had been top secret. When it was announced, only a few trade publications ran the story.

Since then, beyond several dozen stories in December 2017 when the missiles were still non-operational, the media have ignored the story.

Because of sequestration budget cuts, the CHAMP missiles did not become operational under the Obama administration. But after I emailed then Trump National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster in August 2017 information about CHAMP that I was about to include in my book, The Trump White House, he thanked me for letting him know about the capability, agreed to an interview, and ordered a briefing from the Pentagon.

As a result, the Pentagon funded the program and ordered Air Force training worldwide to deploy and operate the missile systems.

The beauty of the HPM missile is that its microwave beam can penetrate bunkers where facilities are hidden without harming humans inside.

Even if a bunker is buried in a mountain, HPM penetrates the facilities through its connections to power cables, communication lines, and antennas. Thus, HPM can penetrate any underground military facility and destroy its electronics.

Targeted at command and control centers, the missile could render any country's military inoperable. And one missile can hit multiple targets in succession.

While North Korea or Iran may attempt to shield their equipment, U.S. officials doubt that would be effective against CHAMP.

Besides underground bunkers and command centers, HPM can quickly disable fighter planes, tanks, ships, and missile systems. And it can wipe out facilities for developing and testing nuclear weapons.

Most amazing of all, the missile renders inoperable any radar that might detect it as it flies to and from a target. Thus, a country cannot take out CHAMP before it strikes and has no way of knowing why its facilities have suddenly gone dead.

America's national laboratories operated by the Department of Energy have been working on HPM capabilities for decades. Over the years, HPM devices have been deployed on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq to disable improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and drones.

One of those laboratories, Sandia National Laboratories, has been developing robots the size of insects that could assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un with deadly toxins.

These robotic weapons using nanotechnology employed in surgical operations in hospitals are being developed secretly with funding by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

While President Ford banned political assassinations with a 1976 executive order, that order was based on the assumption that other world leaders are rational and would refrain from trying to assassinate the U.S. president unless the United States tried to assassinate them.

But we are dealing today with terrorist organizations and world leaders who are not rational and do not care if they are killed.

President Trump could reverse Ford's executive order with the stroke of a pen. With robot-like weapons using nanotechnology, the CIA could wipe out the North Korean leader without risking American lives.

The CHAMP missiles are entirely different from cyber-warfare designed to confuse computers. Unlike a cyberattack, CHAMP permanently fries electronic equipment.

CHAMP missiles emitting HPM also differ from an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack that is created by detonating a nuclear weapon in the atmosphere. Because it is targeted, HPM leaves intact civilian facilities needed to sustain life.

An EMP attack, on the other hand, would leave millions dead because trucks, planes, cars, refrigerators, furnaces, municipal water treatment systems, phones, lights, computers, credit card and banking systems, stock exchanges, ships, and trains would all become inoperable.

***

The Economic Collapse

Total Catastrophe For U.S. Corn Production: Only 30% Of U.S. Corn Fields Have Been Planted – 5 Year Average Is 66%

by Michael Snyder

May 15, 2019

2019 is turning out to be a nightmare that never ends for the agriculture industry. Thanks to endless rain and unprecedented flooding, fields all over the middle part of the country are absolutely soaked right now, and this has prevented many farmers from getting their crops in the ground. I knew that this was a problem, but when I heard that only 30 percent of U.S. corn fields had been planted as of Sunday, I had a really hard time believing it. But it turns out that number is 100 percent accurate. And at this point corn farmers are up against a wall because crop insurance final planting dates have either already passed or are coming up very quickly. In addition, for every day after May 15th that corn is not in the ground, farmers lose approximately 2 percent of their yield. Unfortunately, more rain is on the way, and it looks like thousands of corn farmers will not be able to plant corn at all this year. It is no exaggeration to say that what we are facing is a true national catastrophe.

According to the Department of Agriculture, over the past five years an average of 66 percent of all corn fields were already planted by now…

U.S. farmers seeded 30% of the U.S. 2019 corn crop by Sunday, the government said, lagging the five-year average of 66%. The soybean crop was 9% planted, behind the five-year average of 29%.

Soybean farmers have more time to recover, but they are facing a unique problem of their own which we will talk about later in the article.

But first, let’s take a look at the corn planting numbers from some of our most important corn producing states. I think that you will agree that these numbers are almost too crazy to believe…

Iowa: 48 percent planted – 5 year average 76 percent

Minnesota: 21 percent planted – 5 year average 65 percent

North Dakota: 11 percent planted – 5 year average 43 percent

South Dakota: 4 percent planted – 5 year average 54 percent

Yes, you read those numbers correctly.

Can you imagine what this is going to do to food prices?

Many farmers are extremely eager to plant crops, but the wet conditions have made it impossible. The following comes from ABC 7 Chicago…

McNeill grows corn and soybeans on more than 500 acres in Grayslake. But much of his farmland is underwater right now, and all of it is too wet to plant. Rain is a farmer’s friend in the summer but in the spring too much rain keeps farmers from planting.

The unusually wet spring has affected farmers throughout the Midwest, but Illinois has been especially hard hit. Experts say with the soil so wet, heavy and cold, it takes the air out and washes nutrients away, making it difficult if not impossible for seeds to take root.

Right now, soil moisture levels in the state of Illinois “are in the 90th to 99th percentile statewide”. In other words, the entire state is completely and utterly drenched.

As a result, very few Illinois farmers have been able to get corn or soybeans in the ground at this point…

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s crop progress reports, about 11% of Illinois corn has been planted and about 4% of soybeans. Last year at this time, 88% of corn and 56% of soybeans were in the ground.

I would use the word “catastrophe” to describe what Illinois farmers are facing, but the truth is that what they are going through is far beyond that.

Normally, if corn farmers have a problem getting corn in the ground then they just switch to soybeans instead. But thanks to the trade war, soybean exports have plummeted dramatically, and the price of soybeans is the lowest that it has been in a decade.

As a result there is very little profit, if any, in growing soybeans this year…

Farmers in many parts of the corn belt have suffered from a wet and cooler spring, which has prevented them from planting corn. Typically when it becomes too late to plant corn, farmers will instead plant soybeans, which can grow later into the fall before harvest is required. Yet now, planting soybeans with the overabundance already in bins and scant hope for sales to one of the biggest buyers in China, could raise the risk of a financial disaster.

And if the wet conditions persist, many soybean farms are not going to be able to plant crops at all this year.

Sadly, global weather patterns are continuing to go haywire, and much more rain is coming to the middle of the country starting on Friday…

Any hopes of getting corn and soybean planting back on track in the U.S. may be washed away starting Friday as a pair of storms threaten to deliver a “one-two punch” of soaking rain and tornadoes across the Great Plains and Midwest through next week.

As much as 3 to 5 inches (8 to 13 centimeters) of rain will soak soils from South Dakota and Minnesota south to Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, according to the U.S. Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.

We have never had a year quite like this before, and U.S. food production is going to be substantially below expectations. I very much encourage everyone to get prepared for much higher food prices and a tremendous amount of uncertainty in the months ahead.

Even though I have been regularly documenting the nightmarish agricultural conditions in the middle of the country, the numbers in this article are much worse than I thought they would be at this point in 2019.

This is truly a major national crisis, and it is just getting started.

***

MailOnline

'Terrifying' Ebola epidemic in conflict-riven Democratic Republic of Congo is out of control, warn experts

• Jeremy Farrar, the head of the Wellcome Trust, described outbreak as 'terrifying'

• World Health Organisation says 1,600 contracted disease with 1,000 deaths

• Numbers are expected to rise unless the UN and WHO are able to send more aid

By GEORGE MARTIN FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 16:35, 15 May 2019 | UPDATED:17:48, 15 May 2019

A man displays an Ebola information leaflet for residents in Mangina, Democratic Republic of Congo

Article

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RT

As it re-elects hopeless ANC again, do we finally admit that post-apartheid South Africa has failed?

Published time: 11 May, 2019 06:44 Edited time: 11 May, 2019 13:52

Man carries ANC poster through a township in Johannesburg. © REUTERS/SUMAYA HISHAM

The ANC has yet again won a majority in South Africa’s general election despite its disastrous record, killing hope that the country will turn in the right direction. And the West must stop pretending this is just a glitch.

What’s wrong with the country that went to the polls on Wednesday to vote for a new National Assembly, goes well beyond the hard facts – unedifying as those are.

It’s not that half the population lives in absolute poverty, that more than a quarter of adults are unemployed, or that the country has yet again been declared officially the most unequal in the world. Nor is it the economic growth rate that has stagnated at below a two percent average for a decade, as the rest of the world recovered from the global crisis, or the regular blackouts, the violent crime rates, or that one in five adults is infected with HIV.

Rather, the story since 1994 is of a country being given a historic chance to show the way to prosperity and democracy for Africa – and failing to take it, exactly as the pessimists predicted.

This is not some nostalgic rant hankering for white rule in South Africa. Apartheid was neither fair nor sustainable, disappearing during a period that swept away much sturdier political ideologies.

But it did leave the newly-proclaimed Rainbow Nation with first-world institutions and systems, from a functional democracy to a competitive industrial base to a free press. Merely linear development in the past 25 years would have put South Africa on par with the more prosperous parts of South America and mid-ranking Eastern European states, which had just as big a transformation to deal with.

Perhaps it is cause for celebration that the country has not disintegrated into the worst clichés about African strongmen and kleptocracies. But in a way, the slow ebb is even worse: South Africa feasted on its Boer legacy for the first few years, but with each passing year now it only falls further behind.

What societal model has the African National Congress, the party of Nelson Mandela, built in the stead of apartheid? A virtual one-party rule unchallenged in six elections in a row, creeping racialism, an elite black class built on patronage, and rampant corruption, with officials chafing at the colonial institutions and norms safeguarding it from becoming like the rest of the continent.

Descent to this state in say, 1997, would have been tragic, but to be here in 2019 is depressing.

One can insist that the country had to overcome the lack of collective experience of government or individual education among the population, that it had to stitch the social fabric back together. But then you are basically saying “Africans can’t govern themselves” in different words.

The hopeful Western media narrative ahead of the latest election was voters punishing the leadership for their mismanagement. If the 57.51 percent of votes the ANC has won according to official provisional figures – only four percent lower than in 1994 – is retribution for what is happening now, how much worse do things have to get before they lose the majority?

And are we sure the ANC's replacement will be the center-right Democratic Alliance, with its focus on racial inclusiveness and good governance, rather than Julius Malema’s militant Marxism-inspired Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), keen to redistribute the land away from the whites and remodel the country’s economy? Now that really would usher in a new Zimbabwe.

In all mainstream coverage, incumbent President Cyril Ramaphosa, whom parliament will appoint to a five-year term, has been cast as a force for good for his promise to end the “era of impunity” that flourished under his predecessor, Jacob Zuma. Perhaps he will manage to overcome internal resistance from his party – with help from conscientious investigators and independent journalists – and correct the country’s course.

But until that happens, a more sober view of South Africa is overdue.

The world invested a lot in Mandela as a hero, and his reformed country as a shining beacon, but pussyfooting around its problems fails to mask a collective loss of hope in a successful Africa and eventually becomes counter-productive.

It is not the European white man's job to tell South Africans how to manage their rich and spectacular land or who to vote for, but it is our duty to be honest with them if we think they have lost their way.

By Igor Ogorodnev

Igor Ogorodnev is a Russian-British journalist, who has worked at RT since 2007 as a correspondent, editor and writer.

***

MailOnline

An elephant never forgets! British zookeeper is reunited with animal he cared for 32 years ago - and is instantly recognised by his old friend

• Keeper Peter Adamson looked after Asian elephant Kirsty in Glasgow in 1980s

• She moved away in 1987 and was shipped to Neunkirchen in Germany in 2005

• Mr Adamson shared a fond reunion with the elephant who recognised his voice

By TIM STICKINGS FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 14:38, 29 April 2019 | UPDATED: 12:08, 30 April 2019

Back in the day: Peter Adams with the elephant Kirsty at Glasgow's Calderpark Zoo in the 1980s. Kirsty moved away in 1987 but the pair have been reunited more than 30 years later

Article

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FOX NEWS

Irish woman, 81, finally meets her 103-year-old mother, more than 6 decades after starting search

By Jake Grate

May 11, 2019

An 81-year-old Irish woman was overjoyed after meeting her birth mother for the first time after searching for her for more than 60 years.

Eileen Macken, who grew up in a Dublin orphanage, had been searching for her mother since the age of 19 without success.

After telling her story on RTÉ Radio 1′s Liveline, Macken was contacted by a genealogist, who managed to trace Macken’s mother back to Scotland.

Macken traveled to Scotland last month, along with her husband, daughter and son-in-law, to meet her 103-year-old mother, Elizabeth.

Eileen Macken, right, finally found her mother. (RTE/Joe Duffy’s Liveline Show)

"She's the most beautiful lady, lovely family, they gave me a great welcome,” Macken said to Liveline host Joe Duffy in a follow-up appearance.

She said she had a “great chat” with her mother, who’s celebrating her 104th birthday this weekend.

"There was such a bond between the two of us, it was fantastic. She's such a kind lady, I said to my children that all this life I've loved this lady, even though I don't know who she is,” Macken said, adding she didn’t want to stay too long due to her mother’s age.

Macken thanked Duffy, the Liveline team, the genealogist and everyone who helped make the special moment possible.

"I don't think I'll ever come down out of the cloud," she said.

BACKYARD HOMESTEADING AND SURVIVAL TIPS

WITH M.D. CREEKMORE

What Foods Have the Longest Shelf Life? [My Top 20 Checklist]

BYC ONTRIBUTOR PUBLISHED January 25, 2019· UPDATED March 24, 2019

by Amanda Hermes

There is a surprising variety of foods that can last for years, or ever forever, at room temperature when stored correctly. For all of these foods, the storage method is paramount. To protect your food supplies, store them in airtight containers in cool, dry locations away from light.

Containers might be bins, jars or cans with lids or even plastic bags that close securely. Buying in bulk is a great strategy, but most foods last much longer unopened, so obtaining many smaller containers might be more beneficial, depending on the food.

Moisture is the number one cause of food spoilage because microbes, such as bacteria, molds, and yeasts, flourish in moist locations. These microorganisms feed on food matter and decompose it. Like humans, microorganisms require water to survive, so if you remove moisture from food, it will not decompose, or spoil.

Naturally occurring enzymes in food can react with oxygen to cause spoiling and ripening that destroys food, but these enzymes also need water, so without moisture, this reaction can’t take place.

Make sure to keep long-term foods in cool areas, since heat can cause sweating, which can produce enough moisture for mold to grow. Darker places are also better for storage since sunlight can increase temperature.

While the foods below can last for relatively long periods, always discard foods that have a bad odor, flavor, or appearance. If mold or insects ever appear in your food, discard it immediately,
as these can present serious health hazards if eaten.

Below are twenty foods with remarkably long shelf lives to stock your survival pantry.

1. Dried Beans and Legumes

Legume is a generic term for beans, peas, and lentils. All of these are low-fat, cholesterol-free sources of high-quality protein and fiber, which means they are good for satisfying hunger. All varieties of dried beans and legumes will last indefinitely if stored correctly, that is, in an airtight container in a cool, dry place, according to chef and food scientist Mark Bittman.

Although there are hundreds of varieties of dried legumes, almost all can be prepared in the same way.

To make dried legumes edible, simply place them in a large pot and cover with water. Heat to a boil, and then turn the heat down and cover loosely. Cook, stirring occasionally until the beans are tender. How long this takes depends on the size of the legume you are cooking.

Peas might only take 30 minutes, while kidney beans take about an hour to soften. Legumes that are older than one year might take longer to soften.

2. White, Long-Grain Rice

Basic white, long-grain rice is another food staple that will last indefinitely if stored in an airtight container in a cool, dry place. Brown rice will last approximately one year, but its bran contains oils that can go rancid, whereas the bran has been removed from white rice, allowing it to last pretty much forever.

Rice is basically 100 percent carbohydrates, which provide energy, but not a lot of nutrition. However, it does contain magnesium, vitamin B6, as well as a little protein and fiber. According to Jill Waldbieser at “Cooking Light,” very old rice is actually revered in some Asian communities.

Rice that is over twenty years old commands a higher price and is eaten by royalty because eating it is equated with longevity. To prepare rice, combine with water in a two-to-one ratio (2 cups water, 1 cup rice) in a saucepan.

Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down to medium-low and cover. Cook for about 15 minutes, or until water is absorbed.

3. Dried Pasta

All types of dried pasta will last at least 30 years when stored correctly, which is the same as the foods above. Pasta contains carbohydrates for energy and fiber, as well as iron and magnesium and a small amount of protein. To prepare dried pasta, bring a large pot of water to a boil.

Bittman suggests using five quarts of water per pound of pasta. Add your pasta, and continue to boil for 8-10 minutes, or until the pasta is tender. Drain water, and add seasonings or sauce if you have it.

4. Jerky

Raw meat can easily be contaminated with microorganisms that cause disease, but treating it with heat destroys foodborne microorganisms, and drying it out removes the moisture that
allows them to grow. Jerky can be made from any game meat, beef or pork, but it’s best not to try with poultry.

To make jerky, slice raw meat into strips no more than 1/4-inch thick, and arrange strips on trays or baking sheets so they do not touch or overlap. Bake in a 140-degree oven for 10-24 hours. You can also use a food dehydrator to make jerky at home.

Vacuum-sealed jerky can last up to two years. Jerky is a good source of protein, iron, potassium, and zinc.

5. Dried Vegetables and Fruits

According to How Stuff Works, dehydration is one of the oldest food preservation methods, dating back to 12,000 BC. Dehydrated vegetables, like kale chips and dried green beans, can last up to eight years in an airtight container, according to Food & Wine. Dehydrated carrots can last up to 25 years, and dried corn has a ten-year shelf life.

Dried fruit, on the other hand, lasts about a year. Store dried vegetables and fruits in small airtight containers, such as plastic bags, because every time you open the container, the food is exposed to air and moisture, which lowers its quality.

As stated above, moisture promotes decay, but drying vegetables and fruits removes all the water, thereby preventing the decomposition process.

Unfortunately, it also zaps most nutrients out of fruits and vegetables as well, but vitamin A, iron, and fiber are retained. Use the same drying process as jerky, but check every two hours until food is completely dry and brittle.

6. Powdered Milk

Powdered milk has been around since the 1830s. It is a great way to get calcium, protein, minerals, and amino acids. In the original airtight container, powdered milk lasts up to two years, or ten years unopened.

To reconstitute, add one cup water to 1/3-cup powdered milk. Besides drinking it, you can use powdered milk to flavor other foods, make desserts such as rice pudding, or add nutrients to other dishes.

7. Powdered Eggs

Since the early 1900s, people have been using powdered eggs instead of the original when camping. They are simply dehydrated eggs in powder form and last five to ten years in an airtight container in a cool, dry place.

Just like regular eggs, powdered eggs are a good source of protein, potassium, calcium, and essential vitamins. Simply mix with water and cook to create scrambled eggs.

8. Rolled Oats

Oats are another great source of fiber, potassium, iron, zinc, and several other key nutrients. They last about two years in an airtight container.

To prepare, combine two cups water with one cup oats in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat to low and cook, stirring often for five minutes. Remove from heat, cover, and let sit for five more minutes before eating.

9. Canned Fish

Canned fish, such as tuna, salmon, and sardines are a great source of protein and Omega-3 fatty acids that can last up to three years unopened in a cool, dry place.

The canning process removes air and places food in vacuum sealed containers that are heat processed, thereby destroying microorganisms and preventing bacteria from getting in, according to “Food & Wine” magazine. Canned fish can be eaten right out of the can or heated.

10. Nut Butters

According to “Readers Digest” magazine, nut butters, such as peanut, almond, and cashew, can last up to two years unopened, and six months once they’ve been opened.

Nut butters are a great source of protein and healthy fats.

11. Pickled Vegetables

Pickled vegetables are packed in a solution of water, vinegar, and salt. The acid from the vinegar combines with naturally forming acids in the vegetables, thereby slowing down the decaying process that causes fresh produce to go bad.

Therefore, pickled vegetables can last up to two years unopened. By the same token, vinegar itself never goes bad because it is basically self-preserving.

Pickling recipes vary by vegetable, so it’s best to consult a cookbook or other resource.

12. Canned Goods

Canned goods are a great way to bring variety to your extended shelf life pantry. Despite expiration dates printed on store-bought items, canned goods that are stored in a cool, dark place and remain undented and in good condition are safe for up to six years, according to Fox News.

Canned vegetables and fruits can provide a plethora of vitamins and nutrients, depending on the variety. While it’s safe to eat canned foods at room temperature, most are better heated, with the exception of canned fruit.

Also, read the article How Long Does Canned Food Last that was published here on MDCreekmore.com a few months ago…

13. Honey

Honey’s low moisture content and acidity make it inhabitable for bacteria, so it will last indefinitely at room temperature. After some time, honey may become crystallized, but simply heat a glass jar of honey over low heat in simmering water until it becomes liquid again.

Honey contains virtually no nutrients, but it does contain antioxidants, which protect your body’s cells from damage. It can also be used to treat burns and wounds, due to its antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.

A spoonful of honey is a great remedy for a cough or cold, as it is a natural expectorant.

14 and 15. Sugar and Salt

Both sugar and salt are pure chemicals, which mean they are pretty much indestructible and will never spoil as long as they are kept free from moisture. Like children, microbes love to eat sugar, but they can only do so if it’s somewhat moist.

Whether brown or white, sugar is still safe to eat even if it becomes hardened over time. Salt is great to have on hand to season the foods listed above.

16. Soy Sauce

Fermentation is another method of preserving foods, which makes soy sauce one of the longest lasting flavorings out there. Soy sauce also contains a high level of sodium, thereby preventing bacteria growth.

According to Food & Wine magazine, unopened soy sauce can last indefinitely, and an opened bottle remains good for three years at room temperature.

17. Worcestershire Sauce

Similar to soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce contains high levels of acid and sodium, giving it a shelf life of up to five years unopened. It tastes great added to meat or fish or even beans.

18. Vanilla Extract

Pure vanilla extract can last indefinitely at room temperature in an airtight container because it contains alcohol, which prevents bacteria growth.

For the same reason, many varieties of distilled liquor, such as vodka, rum, whiskey, gin, and tequila, also last indefinitely. This shelf life only applies to pure vanilla extract; imitation vanilla extract generally lasts about four years.

19. Cocoa Powder

Properly stored, an opened package of unsweetened cocoa powder will generally last for about three years at room temperature. Just mix with hot water and add sugar for a comforting beverage.

Pre-mixed hot chocolate powder, however, does not last nearly as long, since it contains dairy.

20. Bouillon Cubes

Properly stored in an airtight container, a package of bouillon cubes or granules, whether beef, chicken, vegetable, turkey or fish, have a shelf life of about two years. These can be used to flavor rice, pasta, beans, or any other dish you are making.

MD Creekmore adds: Some foods like powdered milk, butter powder, cheese powder, shortening powder, and powdered eggs are difficult to package for long-term storage at home so I buy these prepackaged for long-term storage in #10 cans.

My choice for long-term storage food is Augason Farms (click here to see their long-term storage foods on Amazon.com) because of their selection, quality, prices, and customer service.

Resources:

https://www.rd.com/food/fun/foods-that-never-expire/7/
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/packages/cooking-from-the-pantry/the-top-10-longestlasting-foods
https://www.foodandwine.com/news/9-foods-almost-never-go-bad#canned-fish
https://www.cookinglight.com/cooking-101/foods-with-longest-expiration-dates
https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/dehydrated-food.htm
Bittman, Mark. How to Cook Everything. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2008.

Until next week...keep on believing.
Almondtree Productions

“And the stored food shall be for the land against the seven years of famine, which shall be in the land of Egypt; and the land shall not be utterly destroyed by the famine.”
(Genesis 41:36)