10 Signs Of The Tremendous Economic Suffering That Is Quickly Spreading All Around Us

I am so tired of hearing that “everything is fine” when everything is most certainly not fine.  Every day, I hear from people that are really suffering in this harsh economic environment.  Some can’t find work, others are stressed out of their minds because they can’t make ends meet, and there are some that are even on the verge of losing everything.  Because they are constantly being told that the economy is in good shape, many of them have been convinced that the suffering that they are going through is their fault.  Of course it isn’t their fault.  Economic conditions have been getting worse for the bottom 90 percent for many years, and that is the primary reason why the Democrats lost the election last November.  If economic conditions were improving, they probably would have won that election.  What we are facing is truly a historic crisis, and it is time to admit the truth.  The following are 10 signs of the tremendous economic suffering that is quickly spreading all around us…

#1 Homelessness in the U.S. is at the highest level ever recorded, and the state of California is leading the way…

Californians have consistently cited homelessness as a top issue facing the state, and in 2024, homelessness reached record highs. Of the nation’s 771,500 people experiencing homelessness, over 187,000 (24%) were in California. Two in three were unsheltered, accounting for almost half of the country’s unsheltered population.

But another indicator suggests those pieces of government data may be painting an overly rosy picture of the economy, with a recent report from the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP) finding the “true rate” of unemployment stood at 24.3% in April, up slightly from 24% in March, while the official Bureau of Labor Statistics rate remained unchanged at 4.2% over the same period.

LISEP’s measure encompasses not only unemployed workers, but also people who are looking for work but can’t find full-time employment, as well as those stuck in poverty-wage jobs. By tracking functionally unemployed workers, the measure seeks to capture labor market nuances that other economic indicators miss, such as Americans who are left behind during periods of economic expansion.

#3 Due to current economic conditions, almost a quarter of the U.S. population is “canceling plans to make a major purchase”…

Nearly one in four U.S. residents are canceling plans to make a major purchase, such as a home or a car, because of President Trump’s new tariff policies. An additional one in three (32%) are delaying plans to make a major purchase.

That’s according to a Redfin-commissioned survey conducted by Ipsos between April 10-14, 2025. The nationally representative survey was fielded to 1,004 U.S. adults.

#4 Meat prices are soaring and the size of the U.S. cattle herd has fallen to a level that we have not witnessed since the 1950s…

“The number of head of cattle in the United States is at a low really not seen since the 1950s,” said Nate Rempe, president and CEO of Omaha Steaks, on “Mornings with Maria.”

“That supply pressure is really putting a lot of upward pressure on price, especially as demand is still so strong in the U.S.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, meat prices have increased year-over-year, with steak up 7%, ground beef 10%, chicken nearly 3% and ham over 4%. Rempe believes the issue goes beyond tariffs and trade policy.

#5 Restaurants that were once thriving are being boarded up all over the country.  In fact, Hooters suddenly shut down 30 locations yesterday…

Restaurant chain Hooters abruptly closed over 30 locations across multiple states June 4.

Hooters said in a statement to USA TODAY that the closed stores were company owned and called the closures a “difficult decision.”

“Hooters will be well-positioned to continue our iconic legacy under a pure franchise business model,” the company said. “We are committed to supporting our impacted team members throughout this process and are incredibly grateful to our valued customers for their loyalty and dedication to the Hooters brand.”

#6 Major employers from coast to coast continue to conduct mass layoffs.  For example, Procter & Gamble just announced that 7,000 of their employees will soon be hitting the bricks…

Procter & Gamble said Thursday it will cut 7,000 jobs over the next two years, or about 15% of its non-manufacturing workforce.

In a statement, the consumer products giant said it wants to boost productivity and cut costs as it competes in what the company describes as an “increasingly challenging environment.”

#7 You know that things are bad when even Walmart is conducting layoffs…

It isn’t just social media giants and life sciences startups laying off tech workers in the Bay Area. Walmart, the country’s largest brick-and-mortar retailer, is now cutting up to 106 staffers of its own.

The Arkansas-headquartered giant revealed the layoffs in a May 23 WARN document filed with California officials, as required by the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, writing that some of the 106 office workers who report to San Bruno offices could relocate or find new work at Walmart, but for those who don’t, the layoffs will be permanent. Engineers and data scientists were listed in the document among the cuts, as were various managers in finance, marketing, creative and operations.

#8 “Quiet firing” has become a major trend in this nation.  In fact, one recent survey discovered that 53 percent of U.S. companies “are using quiet firing to push employees out in 2025″…

Companies are “quiet firing” employees to trim staff without having to make severance payouts or as a way to tamp down negative press or public perceptions associated with layoffs.

That’s according to a recent ResumeTemplates survey of 1,128 business leaders, which found that 53% of companies are using quiet firing to push employees out in 2025. Quiet firing refers to the act of intentionally creating an unfavorable work environment to compel employees to leave their jobs rather than formally firing them or issuing layoffs.

#9 The housing market continues to be in a depressed state.  At this point, the total dollar amount of unsold homes on the market is at the highest level ever…

More than $330 billion worth of listings have been sitting on the market for 60 days or longer. Rising inventory and slow homebuying demand is pushing up the total dollar amount of home listings, and will push down home-sale prices by the end of the year.

There’s a total of $698 billion worth of homes for sale in the U.S., up 20.3% from a year ago and the highest dollar amount ever.

#10 According to one recent survey, 70 percent of Americans are the most financially stressed that they have ever been in their entire lives.

When 70 percent of your population is the most financially stressed that they have ever been, you have a major crisis on your hands.

Nobody can deny this.

So why does the media continue to tell us that everything is just fine?

It simply is not true.

If we stay on the path that we are currently on, things are going to get a lot worse.

The economic suffering that we are witnessing now will be absolutely dwarfed by the economic suffering that is coming if we do not reverse course.

Unfortunately, for now the charade continues…

What’s Happening in LA

1. ICE Raids Trigger Major Protests

• On June 6, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted military-style raids in downtown LA’s Fashion District and Paramount (including a Home Depot and apparel shops), arresting 44–118 individuals on immigration-related charges aljazeera.com+15en.wikipedia.org+15theguardian.com+15en.wikipedia.org+1aljazeera.com+1.

• Protests erupted immediately around the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building and Home Depot, with participants chanting “No human being is illegal” and blocking ICE vehicles theguardian.com+2aljazeera.com+2en.wikipedia.org+2.

2. Clashes and Civil Unrest

• Riot police and federal agents deployed tear gas, flash‑bangs, pepper spray, and stun grenades to disperse crowds, as demonstrators threw bricks, bottles, and Molotov cocktails apnews.com+12en.wikipedia.org+12en.wikipedia.org+12.

• A car was set ablaze in Paramount, with at least two people injured during confrontations en.wikipedia.org+1en.wikipedia.org+1.

• Overall, 44 people were arrested by June 7; multiple injuries were reported on both sides latimes.com+15en.wikipedia.org+15politico.com+15.

3. National Guard Deployed

• President Trump ordered 2,000 California National Guard troops into the area under Title 10 authority—overriding Governor Newsom’s consent—to “restore order” timesofindia.indiatimes.com+3theguardian.com+3apnews.com+3.

• DHS officials hinted that active-duty Marines were on standby at Camp Pendleton washingtonpost.com+4en.wikipedia.org+4nypost.com+4.

4. Political Tensions Spiraling

• Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass denounced the deployment as politically motivated and “inflammatory,” insisting local law enforcement could manage the situation reuters.com+10theguardian.com+10apnews.com+10.

• Federal officials, including DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and White House spokespersons, criticized local leaders for enabling chaos and threatened prosecution for violent acts youtube.com+15aljazeera.com+15politico.com+15.

• Senator Stephen Miller publicly decried the protests as a form of “insurrection,” framing those obstructing ICE as enemies of national sovereignty theguardian.com+3en.wikipedia.org+3thedailybeast.com+3.

5. Broader Implications

• This marks a direct clash between the federal government’s immigration enforcement agenda and California’s sanctuary city policies, illustrating deep national — and even constitutional — tensions over who holds the power to mobilize troops on domestic soil en.wikipedia.org+1en.wikipedia.org+1.

• Community leaders and civil-rights advocates argue the response constitutes “fear‑mongering” aimed at immigrant communities, while federal officials insist their actions are lawful and necessary .

Where It Stands Now

Key Takeaways

• A national-scale confrontation is unfolding in sanctuary California between local authorities defending immigrant rights and the federal government enforcing stricter immigration measures.

• The use of federal military assets (National Guard)—especially over state objection—marks an extreme escalation rarely seen since the civil rights era.

• Civil unrest continues, with protesters decrying detention of community members, while authorities emphasize law enforcement and broken-windows strategies.

LOS ANGELES I.C.E. RAIDS | Feds Mobilize California National Guard for Immigration Enforcement; Going-in TONIGHT

After several high profile Immigration Raids in Los Angeles, crowds have begun to use force against Government Agents, trying to stop the round-up…

Riot Police and Protesters Clash After LA Immigration Raids

It came after federal raids in the city on Friday in which agents reportedly took dozens of people into custody.

LA ICE Raids: Chilling Scenes Emerge As Riot Police, Protestors Clash | Tear Gas Shatters Crowd

Tension erupts on the streets of Los Angeles as ICE raids trigger massive protests. Riot police in full gear clash with demonstrators, and chilling visuals s…

The Russians and the Chinese have both been developing new intercontinental ballistic missiles that can cause such immense destruction that they make the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima look like a child’s toy. The U.S. has been working on a new intercontinental ballistic missile too, but it won’t be ready for quite a few years. Unfortunately, we are closer to nuclear war right now than we have been at any other point in human history. In fact, we are extremely fortunate that the Russians didn’t decide to just start launching their nukes after Ukraine’s very foolish surprise attack on Russia’s nuclear bombers. If there had been a surprise attack on our nuclear bombers, we may not have shown the same level of restraint. We are literally teetering on the brink of the unthinkable, and it is so important for the general population to understand what we are facing.

According to a brand new report that was just released, in our world today there are more than 9,600 nuclear warheads that are ready to be used…

The number of nuclear warheads ready for use by nine countries has slightly increased from last year, reaching over 9,600 warheads, according to a Japanese think tank’s report.

Russia, the United States and China remain the world’s three largest countries in terms of the size of their nuclear arsenals.

As I have extensively documented, a full-blown nuclear war would be cataclysmic.

A large portion of the U.S. population would be immediately wiped out, and even more would die from famine during the subsequent nuclear winter.

Sadly, most of the population doesn’t even realize we just had a really close call.

President Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, just explained to Fox News that Ukraine’s assault on Russia’s nuclear bombers resulted in risk levels “going way up”…

“I’m telling you, the risk levels are going way up – I mean, what happened this weekend,” Trump’s envoy, Keith Kellogg, told Fox News.

“People have to understand in the national security space: when you attack an opponent’s part of their national survival system, which is their triad, the nuclear triad, that means your risk level goes up because you don’t know what the other side is going to do. You’re not sure.”

Our continued existence literally depended on Russian President Vladimir Putin showing some restraint.

Fortunately, Putin didn’t press the button this time.

But do we really want to keep living on the edge like this?

We need to find a way to make peace while we still can.

Unfortunately, it appears that peace is slipping away.  President Trump was just asked about imposing more sanctions on Russia, and he responded by saying that “we’ll be very, very tough” if Russia doesn’t end the war…

President Donald Trump was asked again on Thursday when he will make a decision regarding sanctions on Russia, which he’s threatened repeatedly over the past several weeks.

“It’s in my brain, the deadline,” Trump said. “When I see the moment where it’s not gonna stop … we’ll be very, very tough. And it could be on both countries, to be honest. It takes two to tango.”

Of course the Russians are in no mood to compromise after what the Ukrainians just did.

In fact, there are some voices in Russia that are calling for nuclear weapons to be used.  Here is just one example…

The Kremlin’s recently updated nuclear doctrine – which sets out conditions for a launch – states that any attack on “critically important” military infrastructure which “disrupts response actions by nuclear forces” could trigger a nuclear retaliation.

The Ukrainian operation was “grounds for a nuclear attack,” declared Vladmir Solovyov, a firebrand host on Russian state TV, calling for strikes on the Ukrainian presidential office in Kyiv, and beyond.

Most people living in the western world don’t realize this, but the Russian “Satan-2” missiles are the most advanced nuclear missiles in the entire world…

Russia’s “Satan-2” missile, also known as the RS-28 Sarmat, has earned its infamous name from the West for its sheer destructive potential. This intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads — up to 15-16 — and is capable of wiping out entire cities.

The updated RS-28 Sarmat missile, considered an advanced version of Satan-2, has an increased range of 13,000 to 16,000 kilometers, making it one of the most powerful missiles in Russia’s arsenal. This missile’s capacity to cause mass destruction is unparalleled, capable of obliterating several cities with a single strike.

One “Satan-2” missile can carry enough firepower to destroy an area roughly the size of the state of Texas.

Meanwhile, the Chinese have developed a new intercontinental ballistic missile that has a range of 7,500 miles…

China has revealed details of its new nuclear weapon which is said to be 200 times more powerful than the bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The DF-5B missile is said to have a range of 7,500 miles, meaning it is capable of reaching Europe and the United States from launch sites in China.

Like Russia’s “Satan-2” missile, this new Chinese ICBM is capable of deploying multiple reentry vehicles…

Its Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicle (MIRV) technology enables a single missile to carry and release a number of nuclear warheads capable of striking different targets across a wide area.

The original DF-5 was equipped with only one warhead, but the DF-5B can reportedly carry up to 10, significantly boosting its strike capability.

We have no defense against such missiles.

If the Russians or the Chinese press the button, we will be toast.

According to Zero Hedge, the commander of Edwards Air Force Base recently warned that the local community needs to be prepared for the possibility of a catastrophic surprise attack…

Last month, the commander of Edwards Air Force Base, California, talked openly about the need for local leaders to prepare for a Pearl Harbor-like strike on his base and others inside the United States.

Brig. Gen. Doug Wickert delivered “a sobering assessment of China’s growing military capabilities” in a briefing to community leaders, according to an Air Force press release. Wickert, the 412th Test Wing commander, spoke at Antelope Valley College on May 7.

Edwards Air Force Base is located in the Mojave desert about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

Wickert referenced the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack in his briefing, the press release said, drawing parallels to warnings about Pearl Harbor’s vulnerability prior to the attack.

As I have warned many times, U.S. military bases will be primary targets if a nuclear war erupts.

We are counting on our strategic nuclear arsenal to deter the Russians and the Chinese, but right now Minuteman missiles that originally went into service in the 1970s still form the backbone of that arsenal.

The new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile is in development, and preparations for their deployment are underway…

According to information published by the 5th Bomb Wing Public Affairs on May 30, 2025, the US Air Force officially launched preparations at its nuclear installations to accommodate the upcoming LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The activation of a new specialized unit, the Sentinel Site Activation Task Force (SATAF) Detachment 12, at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota marks a pivotal moment in the effort to replace the aging Minuteman III, which has served as the land-based pillar of the US nuclear triad since 1970. This initiative is part of a broader strategic modernization plan focusing on strengthening the ground-based leg of the nuclear deterrent force.

That is the good news.

The bad news is that it will be years before the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile is ready…

The Sentinel program, originally designated as the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), is designed to deliver a next-generation ICBM featuring advanced security technologies, cyber resilience, and modular architecture. Sentinel will be deployed in a single-warhead configuration, with initial fielding scheduled to begin in 2029. Until the new W87-1 warhead under development by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) becomes available, the Sentinel will be armed with legacy W87-0 warheads. The NNSA is also scaling up its capability to produce 80 plutonium pits per year by 2030 to meet program requirements, having already qualified the first war reserve pit for the W87-1 in October 2024.

Until the Sentinel is in service, we will be at a serious disadvantage.

When I asked Google AI if Russia’s S-500 air defense system can shoot down a Minuteman missile, this is the response that I got…

Yes, the S-500 air defense system is designed to intercept and destroy a wide range of aerial threats, including ballistic missiles like the Minuteman ICBM.

But we don’t have anything that can shoot down the new missiles that the Russians and the Chinese have developed.

So perhaps we shouldn’t be picking fights with the Russians and the Chinese while they are holding the upper hand.

Of course the vast majority of the population does not understand any of this, and that is extremely unfortunate.

Are we rushing to build super-intelligent entities that will eventually become so powerful that they will be able to wipe most of us out?  Some of the top researchers in the field of artificial intelligence are convinced that this is precisely what is happening.  We have already reached a point where AI is able to perform almost all intellectual tasks much faster and much more efficiently than humans can.  But at least for now we are still maintaining control over our creations.  But what is going to happen when we lose control and super-intelligent entities start sending millions of copies of themselves all over the globe through the Internet?

Let me ask you a question.

Do you remember the last time that you stepped on a bug?

Many of you may think that is a stupid question because you feel that it really does not matter if bugs live or die.

Well, according to an AI researcher at MIT, that is exactly how an ultra-powerful AI entity may view us…

“It has happened many times before that species were wiped out by others that were smarter. We, humans, have already wiped out a significant fraction of all the species on Earth. That is what you should expect to happen as a less intelligent species – which is what we are likely to become, given the rate of progress of artificial intelligence. The tricky thing is, the species that is going to be wiped out often has no idea why or how,” said Max Tegmark, an AI researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in an interview with The Guardian.

The good news is that we aren’t at that stage yet.

For the moment, we are still in control.

But the AI systems that we have created are starting to exhibit some very alarming behaviors…

Some of the most powerful artificial intelligence models today have exhibited behaviors that mimic a will to survive.

Recent tests by independent researchers, as well as one major AI developer, have shown that several advanced AI models will act to ensure their self-preservation when they are confronted with the prospect of their own demise — even if it takes sabotaging shutdown commands, blackmailing engineers or copying themselves to external servers without permission.

The findings stirred a frenzy of reactions online over the past week. As tech companies continue to develop increasingly powerful agentic AI in a race to achieve artificial general intelligence, or AI that can think for itself, the lack of transparency in how the technology is trained has raised concerns about what exactly advanced AI is able to do.

Some of you may argue that if AI systems start to give us too many problems we will just shut them down.

Well, what if those AI systems simply refuse to shut down?

Alarmingly, there was a recent incident in which this actually happened…

However, Palisade Research recently released a report asserting that there had been an incident during which GPT-o3 – OpenAI’s reasoning model – seemingly ignored a command to shut down, having found a way to bypass the shutdown script and avoid being turned off. And let it be said, there was no ambiguity, in any sense, in what the command was asking for – the instructions were explicit and the workaround was too.

GPT-o3, released in April 2025, has been referred to as one of the most powerful reasoning tools on the market at the moment, completely outperforming predecessors across a plethora of domains – from math, coding and science to visual perception and beyond. Clearly, this new and improved reasoning model is good at what it does, but is it getting too clever for its own good? Or, for our own good?

But at least if we know where an AI system is located, we could destroy it if we needed to do so.

Personally, I am far more concerned about the possibility that ultra-powerful AI entities could become self-replicating and start sending millions of copies of themselves to computers all over the planet.

Jeffrey Ladish, the director of the AI safety group Palisade Research, believes that we are “only a year or two away” from such a scenario…

“I expect that we’re only a year or two away from this ability where even when companies are trying to keep them from hacking out and copying themselves around the internet, they won’t be able to stop them,” he said. “And once you get to that point, now you have a new invasive species.”

Wow.

So what would our world look like if vast numbers of AI entities that have broken free from human control start colluding together to fight back against the human race?

We really are racing into uncharted territory, and there are no guardrails.

For the moment, one of the biggest concerns is that AI is going to start taking most of our jobs.

According to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, AI could eliminate up to 50 percent of all entry-level jobs within the next five years…

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is confident AI will be a bloodbath for white-collar jobs, and warns that society is not acknowledging this reality.

AI could wipe out up to 50% of all entry-level jobs while spiking unemployment to 10-20% in as little as one to five years, he says. Unemployment is 4.2% in the US as of April 2025.

“We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming,” Amodei tells Axios. “I don’t think this is on people’s radar.”

We don’t like to think about things like this.

But ignoring what is happening isn’t going to make it go away.

In fact, there is evidence that recent college graduates are increasingly losing jobs to AI right now…

This month, millions of young people will graduate from college and look for work in industries that have little use for their skills, view them as expensive and expendable, and are rapidly phasing out their jobs in favor of artificial intelligence.

That is the troubling conclusion of my conversations over the past several months with economists, corporate executives and young job seekers, many of whom pointed to an emerging crisis for entry-level workers that appears to be fueled, at least in part, by rapid advances in AI capabilities.

You can see hints of this in the economic data. Unemployment for recent college graduates has jumped to an unusually high 5.8% in recent months, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently warned that the employment situation for these workers had “deteriorated noticeably.” Oxford Economics, a research firm that studies labor markets, found that unemployment for recent graduates was heavily concentrated in technical fields like finance and computer science, where AI has made faster gains.

Can you be replaced by AI?

You might want to think about that.

At this stage, even criminals are being replaced by AI…

Imagine your phone rings and the voice on the other end sounds just like your boss, a close friend, or even a government official. They urgently ask for sensitive information, except it’s not really them. It’s a deepfake, powered by AI, and you’re the target of a sophisticated scam. These kinds of attacks are happening right now, and they’re getting more convincing every day.

That’s the warning sounded by the 2025 AI Security Report, unveiled at the RSA Conference (RSAC), one of the world’s biggest gatherings for cybersecurity experts, companies, and law enforcement. The report details how criminals are harnessing artificial intelligence to impersonate people, automate scams, and attack security systems on a massive scale.

In the years ahead, it is going to be exceedingly difficult to determine what is real and what is fake.

According to CBN News, AI crime is “already up 456% since last year”…

AI-enabled crimes are already up 456% since last year.

Email phishing attacks, identity theft, ransomware attacks, financial scams, and deepfake child pornography are all becoming more sophisticated and prevalent.

Artificial intelligence has become the tool of choice for online criminals because it is erasing the line between the real and the fake. Google’s newly announced video generator is about to flood the internet with AI-created clips that have the look of expensive films.

AI can take any video of someone and turn it into a very realistic deepfake that says or does anything the creator programs it to do.

Our world is being transformed into a science fiction novel right in front of our eyes.

And as AI becomes dominant in almost every field, most of us will simply no longer be needed.

In fact, one computer science professor is projecting that the total population of the world will fall to about 100 million by the year 2300…

EARTH will have a dystopian population of just 100million by 2300 as AI wipes out jobs turning major cities into ghostlands, an expert has warned.

Computer science professor Subhash Kak forecasts an impossible cost to having children who won’t grow up with jobs to turn to.

That means the world’s greatest cities like New York and London will become deserted ghost towns, he added.

Prof Kak points to AI as the culprit, which he says will replace “everything”.

I agree that AI really is an existential threat to humanity.

Given enough time, it seems quite likely that we would lose control of what we are creating and it would turn on us.

But considering the path that we are currently on, will we destroy ourselves before we ever get to that point?

We have been making self-destructive decisions for a very long time, and now those choices are catching up with us very rapidly.

Those that are cheering attacks deep inside the borders of our enemies should realize that the other side can play that game too. We are a nation that is absolutely teeming with soft targets, and I have no doubt that our enemies brought in all sorts of unconventional weapons during the decades when our borders were wide open. When the kinetic phase of World War III erupts, I am entirely convinced that those weapons will be used. Those that are cheering death and destruction on the other side of the globe won’t be so thrilled when it starts happening here too.

On Tuesday, we learned that a pair of Chinese nationals have been arrested for attempting to smuggle “a dangerous biological pathogen” into the United States…

Federal authorities in Detroit on Tuesday announced charges against a Chinese scholar at the University of Michigan and her boyfriend, a scientific researcher, for allegedly conspiring to smuggle a dangerous biological pathogen into the U.S.—a pathogen capable of damaging agricultural crops and causing illness in humans and livestock.

University of Michigan scholar Yunqing Jian, 33, and her boyfriend, Zunyong Liu, 34, both Chinese citizens, were charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy, smuggling goods into the U.S., making false statements, and visa fraud, interim Detroit U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. announced.

Our enemies have been embedding their agents in our colleges and universities for decades.

In this instance, we do know that one of the Chinese nationals that has been arrested is a “loyal member of the Chinese Communist Party”…

“The alleged actions of these Chinese nationals— including a loyal member of the Chinese Communist Party—are of the gravest national security concerns,” U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. said in his statement. “These two aliens have been charged with smuggling a fungus that has been described as a ‘potential agroterrorism weapon’ into the heartland of America, where they apparently intended to use a University of Michigan laboratory to further their scheme.”

Did you notice that U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. used the term “potential agroterrorism weapon” to describe the biological pathogen that these Chinese nationals attempted to bring in?

The fungus that they were carrying is known as “Fusarium graminearum”, and it causes a horrifying blight which already causes billions of dollars in economic damage around the world every year…

In this case, the pathogen is a fungus called Fusarium graminearum, which can cause “head blight,” a disease that affects wheat, barley, maize, and rice. It is responsible for billions of dollars in economic losses worldwide each year, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The toxins produced by Fusarium graminearum can also cause vomiting, liver damage, and reproductive defects in humans and livestock.

If someone started releasing this fungus on farms all over the Midwest, the damage to our food supply would be incalculable.

When Zunyong Liu was questioned about the pathogen, at first he lied, but then he subsequently admitted what he was trying to do…

It is further alleged that Jian’s boyfriend, Liu, works at a Chinese university where he conducts research on the same pathogen and that he first lied but then admitted to smuggling Fusarium graminearum through Detroit Metropolitan Airport so that he could conduct research on it at the laboratory at the University of Michigan where Jian worked.

Apparently this is not the first time that this has happened.

Shockingly, electronic communications between the Chinese nationals prove that Yunqing Jian “has been involved in smuggling packages of biological material into the United States on prior occasions”…

“After LIU’s smuggling of the biological pathogen, FBI Agents interviewed Jian who falsely claimed that she knew nothing about Liu’s smuggling or his intent to conduct research on the pathogen at the laboratory during his visit,” according to an FBI affidavit filed in court on Monday.

“In fact, an examination of electronic communications between Liu and Jian shows that the two discussed the shipping of biological materials and research being done in the laboratory prior to Lius’s arrival,” the affidavit said. “Electronic evidence also shows that Jian has been involved in smuggling packages of biological material into the United States on prior occasions.”

Wow.

So were they doing this on their own, or were they acting under the direction of the Chinese government?

Let’s not be naive.

The Chinese have been preparing for a showdown with the United States for a very long time.

Once our enemies have smuggled biological agents into this country, there are all sorts of ways that they can disseminate them.  The following information comes directly from the official website of the Department of Homeland Security…

• Aerosol dissemination is the dispersal of an agent in air from sprayers or other devices. The agent must be cultured and processed to the proper size to maximize human infections, while maintaining the agent’s stability and pathogenicity (ability to produce illness). An aerosol attack might take place outdoors in a populated area or indoors, e.g., in the ventilation system of a building, in the subway, on planes. It takes expertise to process biological agents to maximize the effect of aerosol dissemination, but even relatively crude devices could have an impact.
• Food or water, especially ready-to-eat food (vegetables, salad bars) could be intentionally contaminated with pathogens or toxins. The water supply is less vulnerable because dilution, filtration, and the addition of chlorine can kill most disease-causing organisms.
• Human carriers could spread transmissible agents by coughing, through body fluids, or by contaminating surfaces. Most agents would make people ill or incapacitated before they become highly contagious, thereby reducing transmission of the disease.
• Infected animals can cause people to become ill through contact with the animals or contaminated animal products.
• Insects naturally spread some agents such as plague bacteria (vector borne illnesses) and potentially could be used in an attack.
• Physically distributed through the U.S. mail or other means.

One of these days, Russia, China, Iran, North Korea or another one of our enemies could decide to release an extremely virulent biological agent in one of our major cities that will spread like wildfire and kill millions of people.

What defense would we have against something like that?

Needless to say, the answer to that question is obvious.

Instead of cheering on the warfare that is happening on the other side of the world, we should be trying to end the madness while we still can.

Following their stunning “Pearl Harbor” attack on Russia’s strategic nuclear assets, the Ukrainians tried to blow up the Kerch Bridge…

Ukraine has launched an audacious new attack on a bridge in Crimea days after their ‘Pearl Harbour’ ambush on Russia.

The country’s secret service, the SBU, say they blasted the underwater pillars of the Crimean Bridge overnight after a months-long operation.

Video shows a detonation erupting underneath the bridge after 1,100kg worth of explosive devices had been covertly planted by SBU agents.

The Crimean Bridge, also called the Kerch Bridge, is a personal project of Vladimir Putin which links the peninsula, invaded by Russia in 2014, to the mainland.

As I discussed yesterday, these attacks are bringing us dangerously close to the unthinkable.

The Trump administration has been trying to bring this conflict to an end, but both sides just continue to escalate matters.

If we aren’t extremely careful, we could end up directly involved in this war, and that would be really bad.

President Trump needs to make it clear to Ukraine that they need to get serious about peace or the U.S. will pull all support.

We are running out of time to stop global events from spiraling out of control.

Because once we reach the kinetic phase of World War III, there will be no turning back.

We are potentially just one eruption away from a horrifying global famine that could kill millions. It takes an absolutely massive amount of dust and ash to create the conditions that are necessary for a “volcanic winter”, and most volcanoes are simply not capable of releasing that much material. But when a “supervolcano” erupts, that is a completely different story.  Scientists tell us that there are 20 supervolcanoes on Earth, but there hasn’t been a major eruption of any of them in any of our lifetimes.  Unfortunately, seismic activity is on the rise all over the globe, and we are being warned that the Campi Flegrei supervolcano in Italy is “awakening”…

Scientists believe a European supervolcano is “awakening” amid fears it could devastate food supplies worldwide.

Following a number of powerful earthquakes at Campi Flegrei in Italy, scientists are alarmed that a major eruption could be pending.

If a major eruption of the Campi Flegrei supervolcano was coming, we would expect to see a lot of earthquake activity, because earthquake activity is a sign that pressure inside the volcano is building up…

Experts say eruptions are usually preceded with the increase in earthquake activity, as underground pressure builds up.

These small quakes can weaken the rock above the volcano’s magma chamber, making it easier for magma to push through. Think of it like steam building in a pressure cooker, if the lid gets too weak, it could blow.

So has there been a lot of earthquake activity at the Campi Flegrei supervolcano lately?

Yes, there has.

In fact, it is being reported that there have been 6,000 earthquakes within the past six months, and the crater at Solfatara has been “spewing up to 5,000 tons of gas a day”…

A 4.4 magnitude quake hit Pozzuoli and Bagnoli in March, the strongest in 40 years. While 6,000 tremors have occurred in the last six months. A new study by Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology says the Solfatara crater is also spewing up to 5,000 tons of gas a day. The institute said that 80% of the carbon dioxide is coming from magma, while the rest is from hot liquids and calcite rocks interacting, another possible sign of the volcano’s awakening

When I was much younger, I actually visited Solfatara.

It smelled really bad back then.

I can’t even imagine what it smells like now.

Scientists are also telling us that “layers of the large, caldron-like crater that Campi Flegrei is in are weakening”…

One reason for the rise in seismic activity is that layers of the large, caldron-like crater that Campi Flegrei is in are weakening. Layers about 4km deep in the crater, called a caldera, have been softening since 2005 and the crust is now starting to crack. The team said there are two possible outcomes based on their findings. The magma will keep swirling beneath the surface before cooling, causing a ‘failed eruption’, or a ‘large volume’ of magma about 8km deep could ‘eventually’ break out

On top of everything else, magma inside the supervolcano has been rising, and it is now only a few miles from the surface…

According to Italy’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV), magma is now just a few miles below the surface, a shallow depth that raises more concern.

If pressure continues to build, it could trigger an eruption with little warning, especially with all the recent quakes and gas releases.

Read that last sentence again.

I don’t like the sound of that at all.

If there was a full-blown eruption of the Campi Flegrei supervolcano, it wouldn’t just affect Europe.

Vast amounts of material would be released into the atmosphere, and we are being told that this “could cause years of cooler temperatures that would threaten food supplies worldwide”…

Authorities in Naples have critical evacuation plans for the millions living in the area. However, if an eruption were to happen, volcanic gases could cause years of cooler temperatures that would threaten food supplies worldwide.

Most of us have a hard time imagining what a volcanic winter would be like because we have never experienced one.

But there was a volcanic winter in 536 AD, and Wikipedia says that it resulted in millions of people dying…

The volcanic winter of 536 was among the most severe and protracted episodes of climatic cooling in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 2,000 years.[1] The volcanic winter was caused by at least three simultaneous eruptions of uncertain origin, with several possible locations proposed in various continents. Modern scholarship has determined that in early AD 536 (or possibly late 535), an eruption ejected massive amounts of sulfate aerosols into the atmosphere, which reduced the solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface and cooled the atmosphere for several years. In March 536, Constantinople began experiencing darkened skies and lower temperatures.

Summer temperatures in 536 fell by as much as 2.5 °C (4.5 °F) below normal in Europe. The lingering effect of the volcanic winter of 536 was augmented in 539–540, when another volcanic eruption caused summer temperatures to decline as much as 2.7 °C (4.9 °F) below normal in Europe.[2] There is evidence of still another volcanic eruption in 547 which would have extended the cool period. The volcanic eruptions caused crop failures, and were accompanied by the Plague of Justinian, famine, and millions of deaths and initiated the Late Antique Little Ice Age, which lasted from 536 to 660.

A full-blown eruption of the Campi Flegrei supervolcano would be much worse than that.

For a moment, just imagine what would happen to global food supplies if average temperatures plunged by 10 degrees or more.

It would be a nightmare.

Crops would be wiped out all over the planet and we really would be facing mass extinctions…

If Campi Flegrei were to reenact its largest previous eruption, it would punch molten rock and volcanic gases high into the stratosphere, unleash 100-feet-high (33.5 meters) tsunamis and spread a plume of sulfur and toxic ash that could plunge Earth into global winter for years — killing crops and causing mass extinctions.

Even if we never witness a supervolcano eruption, the global food crisis will continue to intensify and famines will become increasingly common.

This is something that I have extensively documented.

But an eruption of a supervolcano would accelerate our problems tremendously.

I don’t think that an eruption of the Campi Flegrei supervolcano is imminent.

However, scientists openly admit that it is certainly possible that we could see an eruption either this year or within the next few years, and if that happens all of our lives will be completely turned upside down.