The chief veterinary officer of the United States laid out a dire picture Wednesday of the devastating spread of highly contagious bird flu this year through some 232 poultry facilities, forcing the killing of 7.5 million turkeys and 42 million chickens, including roughly 10 percent of the nation's egg-laying population.
"Today, we are facing the largest animal health emergency in this country's history," Dr. John Clifford, deputy administrator for the USDA's animal and plant health inspection service, said in written testimony to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "People have lost their jobs and have seen their livelihoods put in danger, and our hearts go out to them."
Clifford testified that the risk of another outbreak is "significant" when birds begin to migrate again this fall.
He said his agency is doing everything it can to be ready, including supporting the development of a vaccine and working with states and industry on response plans. He said the USDA is still trying to streamline its processes for providing aid to poultry producers who were affected by the outbreak in the spring.
Many of the producers are still trying to repopulate their farms, and some are still wary that if they do, another avian influenza outbreak could wipe them out again.
The virus outbreak, which started in December, was carried by wild ducks and geese from Asia to the West Coast of the United States and then to the Midwest, where they spread it through water and soil to the commercial poultry facilities. It also spread between facilities through "lapses" in biosecurity, Clifford said, for example, through unsanitized worker boots or equipment.
While the flu has not been transmitted to humans, the Centers for Disease Control is preparing for the possibility, according to Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's national center for immunization and respiratory diseases.
Have you noticed that events have begun to accelerate?
Over the past few weeks, things have officially started to get very weird. Chinese stocks are crashing, the Greek debt crisis is spiraling out of control, the New York Stock Exchange was down for about four hours on Wednesday thanks to a “technical glitch”, and global politicians have been acting very strangely. After several years of relative calm, could it be possible that the second half of 2015 will usher in a time of chaos and confusion on a worldwide scale? Personally, I have never been more concerned about a period of time as I am about the last six months of 2015. And if I am right, what we have seen so far is just the tip of the iceberg. The following are 10 very strange things that have happened in just the past few weeks…
#1 On Wednesday, the New York Stock Exchange, United Airlines and the Wall Street Journal were all taken down by unexpected “technical glitches“. Authorities are assuring us that hackers were not responsible for any of this.
#2 In China, a full-blown stock market crash is unfolding. The Shanghai Composite Index has plummeted more than 30 percent in less than a month, and the Chinese version of the NASDAQ has dropped by more than 40 percent. The amount of “paper wealth” that has been lost in China is 15 times greaterthan the GDP of Greece.
Well, this is absolutely terrifying. According to The Local, hackers attacked a German Patriot surface-to-air missile battery, like the one shown above, stationed along the Turkish-Syria border. The cyber attack caused the battery to carryout “unexplained” orders.
#5 Just a few days ago, the U.S. Mint announced that they were sold out of American Eagle silver coins on the exact same day that the price of silver hit a new low for 2015. How does that make any sense?
#6 On June 30th, an unexpected blood moon was seen over a significant portion of the United States. This also happens to be the exact day when the Supreme Court gay marriage decision came out. The following is an excerpt from a recent article by Caiden Cowger…
On June 30, 2015, a surprise blood moon appeared in the sky, that was only seen in the United States.
According to the National Weather Service, large wildfires in Canada have been burning. Due to extremely high winds, smoke from these fires have traveled into the United States.
According to NBC-Chattanooga, “the smoke should remain in the higher atmosphere and not affect air quality, it gives the moon and sun a rosy glow.
Here’s what causes the effect:
As light from the moon or sun enters the atmosphere it gets scattered by particles like water, aerosols, and in this case smoke. Green, blue, and purple colors are sent in all directions but colors with longer wavelengths like red, orange and yellow continue through the atmosphere and remain visible to the human eye.”
#7 Even though NASA recently stated that they know of “no asteroid or comet currently on a collision course with Earth” and that “no large object is likely to strike the Earth any time in the next several hundred years“, NASA has teamed up with the National Nuclear Security Administration to try to figure out a way to use nuclear weapons to destroy asteroids that are threatening our planet. If there is no threat, why spend so much time and energy on this?
#8 A couple of weeks ago, we learned that Barack Obama has issued 19 “secret directives“. What is Obama planning, and why won’t he let the general public know about it?
#9 This week, Pope Francis called for the creation of “a new economic and ecological world order where the goods of the Earth are shared by everyone, not just exploited by the rich.” So exactly what would such a “world order” look like?
#10 The Greek people just overwhelmingly voted to reject austerity, so EU officials have responded by giving the Greek government a one week deadline to come to an agreement that will include even more austerity for the Greek people. If the Greek government does not submit, EU officials are threatening them with bankruptcy, the collapse of their banking system and expulsion from the euro.
Things promise to only get stranger from here. One week from today, on July 15th, a massive military exercise known as “Jade Helm” begins. More than 1,000 members of the U.S. military will be taking part in drills that will be conducted in the states of Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, California, Mississippi and Florida.
Then in September comes the end of the Shemitah year, the fourth blood moon of this tetrad, the launch of a radical new sustainable development agenda at the United Nations that is being endorsed by the Pope, and a vote on a UN Security Council resolution that would formally establish a Palestinian state.
And that is just the stuff that we know about.
Greece requested a new three-year bailout from its skeptical eurozone creditors and pledged some economic overhauls on Wednesday, but the euphoria some Greeks felt after Sunday’s “no” vote on the last deal was fading fast.
Whether European leaders accept the Greek government’s application for more emergency loans at a crisis summit Sunday still depends on Prime Minister Alexis Tsiprasmaking a drastic turnaround on pension cuts, tax increases and other austerity measures after five months of often-acrimonious negotiations.
“The actual examination can only begin once the full package has been put on the table,” said a spokesman for German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who has pushed a hard line on Greece and made clear that Germany is prepared for a potential Greek exit from the eurozone.
His comments echo those of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who said Tuesday night that a new three-year aid program for Greece would require measures—including changes to labor laws, product markets and the privatization of state assets—that had been dropped from negotiations in recent months.
The unyielding tone left Greeks on both sides of the bailout debate grappling Wednesday with the possibility that Mr. Tsipras pushed things too far, as a second week of capital controls and closed banks start to affect the supply of many goods, including medicine, and the specter looms of being forced out of the eurozone if no deal is struck.
In the face of that prospect, the U.S. and the International Monetary Fund Wednesday issued their most forceful calls yet for Europe to restructure Greece’s debt.
Greek banks will likely run out of cash by the end of the week, two senior Greek bankers said.
“Not all banks will run out of cash at once,” one of the bankers said, “but they’ll all be out within hours of each other.”
Jade Helm 15, the controversial Special Operations exercise that spawned a wave of conspiracy theories about a government takeover, will open next week without any media allowed to observe it, a military spokesman said.
Embedded reporters won’t be permitted at any point during the exercise, in which military officials say that secretive Special Operations troops will maneuver through private and publicly owned land in several southern states. Lt. Col. Mark Lastoria, a spokesman for Army Special Operations Command, said his organization is considering allowing a small number of journalists to view selected portions of the exercise later this summer, but nothing is finalized.
The exercise is scheduled for July 15 through September 15 and is expected to include more than 1,200 troops. Army Special Operations Command announced the exercise in March, saying its size and scope would set it apart from most training exercises. For months, some protesters have said Jade Helm is setting the stage for future martial law.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, called in April for the Texas State Guard to monitor the exercise, drawing a new wave of attention to Jade Helm and criticism from people who said he was fanning the hysteria. He defended the decision, saying it would improve communication between Special Operations forces and civilians in Texas.
The Washington Post has several times requested access to observe the exercise, making the case to the military that first-hand media coverage would help explain the mission. Lastoria said it is not possible to allow a journalist to travel with Special Operations forces in the field, citing the isolated nature of the mission and the need to protect the identity of the forces involved.
Controversial military
exercises that will soon take place in the U.S. with roughly 1,200 special operations forces will be off limits to the press.
exercises that will soon take place in the U.S. with roughly 1,200 special operations forces will be off limits to the press.
A military spokesman said Wednesday that Jade Helm 15, which will take place in parts of Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana from July 15 through Sept. 15 will not have media observers.
Lt. Col. Mark Lastoria, a spokesman for Army Special OperationsCommand, said no reporters will be embedded with special operations forces, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Command, said no reporters will be embedded with special operations forces, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Critics of Jade Helm 15 say that its nature is eerily akin to the kind of military exercises one would see prior to the declaration of martial law.
one would see prior to the declaration of martial law.
Personnel from Eglin Air Force Base in western Florida will coordinate Jade Helm 15 exercises. The base is home of the Army’s 7th Special Forces Group. All four branches of the military will take part in the training.
Base in western Florida will coordinate Jade Helm 15 exercises. The base is home of the Army’s 7th Special Forces Group. All four branches of the military will take part in the training.
Don’t just beware of the communists – beware of communist dupes, political science professor Paul Kengor is warning.
To term someone a “dupe” is not simply name-calling, according to Kengor. The word was commonly used during the Cold War when communists referred to those they hoodwinked as “dupes.”
The professor explained that communists mostly targeted liberals and progressives as potential dupes, because they were already close to communism on the ideological spectrum.
Russian Revolution leader Vladimir Lenin referred to such people as “useful idiots.” Whittaker Chambers, the former Soviet spy who later renounced communism, said the goal was to “flatter them to their faces” but privately “treat them with sneering contempt.”
As part of the effort to fool Western progressives, the Soviets built fake “Potemkin villages” for the sole purpose of making life under communism appear better than it actually was. Kengor noted Soviet officials were pleasantly mystified by their naïve Western visitors.
“You should read some of [the Soviet officials'] accounts,” Kengor urged his audience. “They couldn’t believe how easy it was to mislead Western progressives. They were stunned. They were like, ‘This is really easy. Maybe we need to throw these people in the gulag. Maybe they’re spies.’”
The Soviet regime was not the only one that used Potemkin villages; North Korea’s communist dictators have used them, too. In fact, Kengor said Jimmy Carter was fooled by a giant Potemkin village when the former president visited North Korea in 1994.
Legendary birth-control activist Margaret Sanger also journeyed to the Soviet Union, in 1934, to see what the Soviets were doing with birth control. The Bolsheviks had legalized abortion in 1920, and by the time Sanger visited, they had an abortion rate never before seen in the history of the world, according to Kengor.
Even Sanger, who founded the organization that evolved into Planned Parenthood, was appalled by the number of abortions in the USSR. However, a number of Soviet officials assured her that as soon as the country attained its economic and social goals, neither abortions nor contraception would be necessary anymore. Sanger bought the line, and her willingness to believe reveals a lot about progressives, according to Kengor.
“You see the progressive belief in utopia,” Kengor said. “Once you fully get the state doing everything and all the wondrous things that the state needs to do – every progressive and leftist believes that they simply haven’t had enough power yet to really do what they want. But when they really can truly really, really, really do what they want, it’ll all work out.”
What kind of people is Pope Francis surrounding himself with? The fact that this Pope decided to choose German professor John Schellnhuber as his chief climate change advisor is raising a lot of eyebrows. Schellnhuber doesn’t believe in God, but as you will see below, he does appear to believe in ‘Gaia’. Schellnhuber has also advocated for the establishment of an “Earth Constitution”, a “Global Council” directly elected by the citizens of the world, and a “Planetary Court” that would serve as the pinnacle of a planetary legal system. In addition, he believes that the “carrying capacity” of our planet is less than one billion people. This is the man that the Pope has chosen to advise him on the issue that Pope Francis has made the centerpiece of his papacy.
The concept of ‘Gaia’ has deep roots in ancient paganism. Many of the advocates of the ‘Gaia hypothesis‘ do not consider themselves to be religious, but in reality it is a kind of “scientific pantheism”. This quasi-scientific theory was popularized by James Lovelock in his book entitled “Gaia: A New Look At Life On Earth“, and apparently this is a theory that Schellnhuber endorses. The following is an extended excerpt from a recent article by William M. Briggs…
So why would the Pope rely on the “expertise” of someone that does not believe in God, but that argues that “Gaia faces a powerful antagonist”?
Perhaps someone should ask him.
And someone should also ask the Pope why he is hanging around with someone that believes that our planet is overpopulated by six billion people…
Schellnhuber is most famous for predicting that the “carrying capacity” of the earth is “below” 1 billion people. When confronted with this, he called those who quoted him “liars.” But he then repeated the same claim, saying, “All I said was that if we had unlimited global warming of eight degrees warming, maybe the carrying capacity of the earth would go down to just 1 billion, and then the discussion would be settled.” And he has often said that this temperature tipping point would be reached — unless “actions” were taken.
Schellnhuber is also an unashamed globalist. In a previous article, I discussed how he believes that we need a global government, a global constitution and a global court that would have authority over all the other courts on the planet. The following is an excerpt from a very disturbing article that he authored…
Let me conclude this short contribution with a daydream about those key institutions that could bring about a sophisticated — and therefore more appropriate — version of the conventional “world government” notion. Global democracy might be organized around three core activities, namely (i) an Earth Constitution; (ii) a Global Council; and (iii) a Planetary Court. I cannot discuss these institutions in any detail here, but I would like to indicate at least that:
– the Earth Constitution would transcend the UN Charter and identify those first principles guiding humanity in its quest for freedom, dignity, security and sustainability;
– the Global Council would be an assembly of individuals elected directly by all people on Earth, where eligibility should be not constrained by geographical, religious, or cultural quotas; and
– the Planetary Court would be a transnational legal body open to appeals from everybody, especially with respect to violations of the Earth Constitution.
So why is Pope Francis surrounding himself with such people?
Does he have similar hopes for the future?
Without a doubt, the Pope’s latest encyclical fully embraces Schellnhuber’s views on climate change, but it doesn’t stop there. The Pope also expressed a very negative view of human progress, and he appeared to be echoing many of the exact same talking points that radical environmentalists have been hammering us with for years.
Also see:
Nothing strange or suprising at all for me, only that a blood moon happen on that ruling. He will come when none of us expect it.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes I saw the blood moon that night but I was fueled with anger & didn't care.people don't be caught in sin!!!! Take heed
ReplyDeleteGood by Iran.
ReplyDelete