The Russians are counting down the days to the inauguration of Donald Trump, because they see him as the last best hope for peace.  The Russians would very much prefer to avoid a nuclear confrontation, and they have been greatly encouraged by what Trump has been saying about the war in Ukraine.  But if the Russians ultimately conclude that there is no way to avoid an all-out war between our two nations after negotiating with Trump, all bets are off.

While most Americans are focused on holiday festivities, events on the other side of the globe threaten to spiral out of control.

The Russians are telling us that they will “definitely” respond to the long-range missile attack on the city of Taganrog…

The Kremlin said Thursday it would “definitely” respond to a Ukrainian attack on a military airfield in its south that used U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia would respond to the ATACMS strike on a military airfield in the southern city of Taganrog, in the Rostov region.

President Vladimir Putin has previously threatened to launch Russia’s new hypersonic ballistic missile, named Oreshnik, at the center of Kyiv if Ukraine does not halt its attacks on Russian territory with U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles.

I don’t even want to think about what an Oreshnik missile could do to the center of the city of Kiev.

That would be a major escalation, and so let us hope that it does not happen.

But the Biden administration is warning that the Russians appear to be gearing up to launch another Oreshnik soon…

A U.S. official said on Wednesday that Russia could launch another hypersonic ballistic missile in Ukraine in the coming days, but Washington does not consider the Oreshnik weapon a game-changer in the war.

The good news is that the Russians are not going to use nuclear weapons at this stage. Before they cross that threshold, they want to talk with Trump first to see if something can be worked out.

On Thursday, Trump was named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year”…

Donald Trump once publicly speculated that Time would never name him the news magazine’s “Person of the Year.”

Now, the honor has been bestowed on him twice.

Time on Thursday named Trump as this year’s choice, recognizing the president-elect as the individual or group deemed to have wielded the greatest influence on global affairs “for good or for ill.” To celebrate the unveiling of the magazine cover, Trump will ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. Trump sat for a wide-ranging interview with the magazine last month.

During his interview with Time Magazine, Trump had quite a bit to say about the war in Ukraine.

In fact, he specifically stated that it was a “foolish decision” for Joe Biden to authorize long-range missile strikes deep into Russia…

Joe Biden’s decision to permit Ukraine to use American-supplied long-range missiles on targets inside Russia was “foolish” and a “major escalation” in the conflict, according to President-elect Donald Trump.

“Anything can happen. Anything can happen. It’s a very volatile situation,” President-elect Trump said of the Ukraine conflict in an interview with Time on November 25, published on Thursday. “I think the most dangerous thing right now is what’s happening, where [Volodymyr] Zelensky has decided, with the approval of, I assume, the president, to start shooting missiles into Russia. I think that’s a major escalation. I think it’s a foolish decision.”

For those of us that are hopeful that a nuclear war can be avoided, those are really good words to hear.

In addition, Trump also told Time Magazine that he personally disagrees “very vehemently” with what Biden has decided to do…

“I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia,” Trump said in his interview with Time. “Why are we doing that? We’re just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done.”

I think that it is clear that Trump wants to work out something with the Russians. But will that be possible?

Our European allies definitely do not want this war to end.  In fact, the secretary general of NATO just warned that “we are not ready for what is coming”, and he is urging western countries to prepare for war with Russia.

In Washington D.C., most members of Congress on both sides of the aisle do not want this war to end either.  They want to keep fighting until Ukraine has won, but that simply is not going to happen.

Right now the Russians are gobbling up territory faster than they have since the early days of the conflict, and as long as they hold the “strategic initiative” they will not have an incentive to end the war until all of their goals have been achieved…

It’s a feature of our days that the Intelligence heads of the great powers have been acting in a quasi-diplomatic function, stepping out of the shadows of the world of espionage to engage in open discussion of the issues.

That applies to CIA’s director Burns, the Ukrainian Budanov, and also to Russia’s spy chief, Sergei Naryshkin.

Heading Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SRV), the current incarnation of the famous (and infamous) KBG, Naryshkin has said that Russia is ‘close to achieving all its war goals and holds the strategic initiative in all areas of the war.’

The Russians have been publicly telling us that in order for the war to end Ukraine must forget about joining NATO and there cannot be any NATO forces on Ukrainian soil when the conflict is over.

On the other side, the Ukrainians are insisting on being allowed to join NATO when the war has concluded, and they want a very large contingent of western troops on Ukrainian soil in order to prevent the Russians from invading again.

I don’t see how that gap can be bridged any time soon.

In addition, the Russians say that they want to keep all of the territory that they have captured, and that is a non-starter for the Ukrainians.

The Ukrainians are acting as if they still have a chance to win this war, but that doesn’t make sense.  According to ABC News, about a million Ukrainian soldiers have died since the war began.  It is also being reported that “hundreds of thousands” of soldiers have lost limbs.  Ukrainian forces are completely worn out, and they are losing more ground with each passing day.

The only way that the Ukrainians could win this war would be for NATO to get directly involved in fighting Russia. As I have repeatedly warned, once we are in a direct war with Russia it is just a matter of time before it goes nuclear. For now, Donald Trump is the only thing standing between us and nuclear war.

Will he be able to successfully negotiate with the Russians and bring this horrible ordeal to an end? We better hope so, because at this moment we are closer to nuclear war than we have ever been before.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Here in the United States, the cost of living is absolutely eviscerating the middle class.  If a way cannot be found to stabilize food prices, we will be seeing a tremendous amount of anger and frustration in 2025 and beyond.

Last week, it was being reported that global food prices had risen to “the highest level in 19 months”…

The world food price index, compiled by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to track the most globally traded food commodities, increased to 127.5 points last month from a revised 126.9 points in October, the highest level in 19 months and up 5.7% from a year ago.

The vegetable oil index jumped 7.5% above levels seen a month ago and 32% above those seen a year earlier, driven by concerns over lower-than-expected palm oil output due to excessive rainfall in Southeast Asia.

Clearly, things are not heading in the right direction. But what could be coming next is potentially even more alarming.

Insane global weather patterns are having a dramatic impact on the production of some of our most important staples, and as a result prices are rapidly trending higher.  For example, the price of Arabica beans has risen over 80 percent so far in 2024…

Coffee drinkers may soon see their morning treat get more expensive, as the price of coffee on international commodity markets has hit its highest level on record.

On Tuesday, the price for Arabica beans, which account for most global production, topped $3.44 a pound (0.45kg), having jumped more than 80% this year. The cost of Robusta beans, meanwhile, hit a fresh high in September.

It comes as coffee traders expect crops to shrink after the world’s two largest producers, Brazil and Vietnam, were hit by bad weather and the drink’s popularity continues to grow.

If you love coffee, you are already feeling quite bit of pain.

Unfortunately, it appears that coffee prices could become even more painful in 2025.

A similar thing is happening to another very popular morning beverage.

The price of orange juice is up 327 percent over the last 3 years, and thanks to Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton it is expected to go even higher in 2025…

As consumers struggle with higher prices for groceries, one staple of the American breakfast is about to get a lot more expensive. Plagued by diseased groves, uprooted trees to make room for housing developments, and severe weather that has decimated crops, the price of orange juice has skyrocketed in the past 3 years by 327% and is expected to climb even higher in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton which swept through Florida less than three weeks apart.

According to industry data, Hurricane Milton destroyed over 3 million boxes of oranges in Florida, setting the state up for the smallest orange harvest in close to 100 years. Coupled with a protracted drought in Brazil, the world’s largest orange exporter, the price for frozen concentrated orange juice trading on the Intercontinental Commodity Exchange (“ICE”) has soared 80% to a record high of $5.25 per pound.

Many Americans like to have eggs with their orange juice in the morning, but the bird flu is sending egg prices into the stratosphere.

In some areas of California, a dozen eggs will now cost you more than 4 dollars…

Economists said the bird flu is continuing to impact the supply chain, with California becoming the epicenter of the virus and the fallout.

Gillian Thorp went to her local Trader Joe’s in Santa Clara in search for a dozen eggs that now costs her $4, assuming she could find some in the first place.

“I stopped by the egg section and there were only two choices,” Thorp said. “It was pretty empty. I usually only purchase organic eggs and there was only one choice for that.”

The bird flu isn’t going anywhere.

In fact, a fresh wave is sweeping across the United States right now.

So if you love eggs, that is really bad news.

Meanwhile, the size of the U.S. cattle herd has fallen to the lowest level since 1961…

America’s beef cow inventory has steadily declined over the last half-decade, reaching 64-year lows and signaling a deepening crisis across the cattle industry. As the cattle crisis worsens, consumers should brace for higher ground beef prices.

The shrinking beef supply has pushed the nation’s herd size to its smallest level since 1961. With severe droughts, high interest rates, costly feed prices, sliding farm income, surging farm debt, and a shifting consumer preference toward cheaper chicken, struggling ranchers have been culling heifers, preventing any meaningful recovery in the number of calves necessary to expand the nation’s herds.

There were 183 million people living in the United States in 1961.

Today, our population is nearly double that figure.

So we have the same amount of beef that we did in 1961 to feed almost twice as many people.

If you were wondering why beef prices had gotten so high, now you know.

Instead of eating a steady diet of high quality food, we are being fed an endless stream of heavily-processed packaged foods that are loaded with extremely unhealthy filler ingredients such as high fructose corn syrup.

Sadly, many Americans are in such financial distress that the heavily-processed packaged foods are all that they can afford.

Of course even the heavily-processed packaged foods are quite a bit more expensive than they once were.

We have definitely entered very dangerous territory, and I fully expect the trends that have been pushing up food prices to accelerate even more in 2025.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

If you are old enough, you can still remember a time when many middle class families would purchase a new vehicle every few years.

Sadly, today most of us are being forced to get as much mileage out of our rapidly aging vehicles as we possibly can.  As a result, the average age of the passenger vehicles traveling America’s roads has reached an all-time record high…

This should be the best of times for the people who help keep America’s cars running.

There have never been as many on the road—around 290 million light vehicles—and they have never been so old. One reason for that is good news: They are better made. Getting the odometer past 100,000 miles has gone from being noteworthy to normal. Thirty years ago the average passenger car was about 8.4 years old and today that is 13.6 years.

Even keeping our aging vehicles repaired has become exceedingly difficult.

These days, if the mechanic hands you a repair bill for less than a thousand dollars that is a reason to celebrate.

In the old days, you could get a really nice used vehicle for a thousand dollars.

Of course groceries have become insanely expensive as well.  Earlier today, I came across a USA Today article that discussed the fact that the average household in Miami spends 327 dollars at the grocery store per trip…

Many longtime Miamians say they’ve felt this way since the pandemic transformed much of their city. As New Yorkers and Californians faced lockdown orders and restrictions, many flocked to Florida, with the largest increase of New Yorkers moving to Miami where they could benefit from tax and mandate breaks while working remotely. But along with having the largest net population gain of any state in the country came exploding living and housing costs. Housing prices have risen almost 50%, according to the UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index released last month.

Grocery prices shot up. (An average household spent about $327 per trip). So did electric bills. A carton of eggs last year cost $5.

327 dollars used to be a lot of money.

Now it will just buy you one cart of food.

I warned my readers that the economic conditions that we were witnessing in Venezuela would eventually come here, and now it has happened.

As I discussed a few days ago, core consumer prices have actually risen for 53 months in a row. Our cost of living crisis is out of control, and there is no end in sight.

As they struggle to pay their bills, many Americans are turning to credit cards for some relief. As a result, credit card debt balances have soared to record high levels…

The average American household credit card balance as of the third quarter of 2024 was about $10,757 after adjusting for inflation, according to a new study.

The personal-finance website WalletHub onFriday released its new Credit Card Debt Study, which found that consumers added $21 billion in debt during the third quarter of 2024.

Early results for the fourth quarter of the year show preliminary data for October at a new record high for credit card debt in the month, in absolute terms.

As credit card debt levels rose, it was inevitable that more Americans would start getting behind on their payments, and that is precisely what has happened…

Are you feeling financially stressed as 2024 comes to a close? You’re not alone, not even close. In fact, 7.8 million Americans have delayed payments on at least one of their credit accounts this year. That’s a million more than in 2023.

This is really bad news for the economy as a whole, because our economy is highly dependent on consumer spending.

You can’t get blood from a stone, and restaurants all over the country are learning the hard way that most consumers simply cannot afford to eat out as regularly as they once did…

Seafood giant Red Lobster, Italian chain Buca di Beppo, fish taco eatery Rubio’s Coastal Grill and the owner of burger and pizza chains BurgerFi and Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza are among those that have sought to reorganize through bankruptcy this year. Hooters of America is also huddling with lenders and advisers amid revenue declines, Bloomberg reported.

Shares of Dine Brands Global Inc., the parent of Applebee’s and IHOP, are down about 30% year-to-date, while shares of Bloomin’ Brands Inc., which owns Outback Steakhouse, dropped to near 2020 lows last month after it reported a decline in US same-store sales.

Yes, a “restaurant apocalypse” has begun.

When I first started using that term, a lot of people thought that I was exaggerating.

But of course I was not exaggerating one bit.

There was a time when it seemed like just about anyone in this nation could achieve “the American Dream” if they just worked hard enough.

But now we have reached a point where only 31 percent of Americans believe that they have “made it” in life…

Despite being the land of opportunity, the American Dream remains frustratingly out of reach for most Americans, with a mere 31% believing they’ve financially “made it” in life.

Sadly, that figure is even lower for Baby Boomers…

However, the picture becomes less optimistic with age. Only 27% of baby boomers feel they’ve reached financial success, and among those who haven’t, just one-third believe they ever will. The survey found that Americans consider their path to financial success threatened by various external factors, including presidential elections (46%), interest rate changes (45%), and the job market (42%).

After working so hard for so many years, only 27 percent of Baby Boomers feel like they have “made it” in life.

Well, that is quite depressing.

Things could have turned out far differently.  Many of us ranted and raved for years that things would turn out this way, but most of the country did not want to listen.

Bad decisions lead to bad results.

Our leaders have been making comically bad decisions for decades, and thanks to them we now have a complete and utter nightmare on our hands.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Business leaders globally are worried about the risk of recession, labour shortages and rising inflation, despite some signs of improvement in economic conditions, a World Economic Forum survey said on Thursday.

Extreme weather events are an increasing concern, following a year of record temperatures, severe flooding and wildfires, including in major economies such as Brazil, Germany, Indonesia and the United States, according to the survey of more than 11,000 business leaders from G20 countries.

When asked to rank the top risks that they are facing over the next two years, business leaders actually ranked economic downturn number one…

Economic downturn is seen as the top risk for business leaders over the next two years, followed by labour and/or talent shortages and then inflation. Poverty and inequality ranked fourth, and extreme weather events came in fifth, the survey showed.

Business leaders tend to be relatively optimistic compared to the population as a whole, and so these results kind of surprised me.

Of course to many of us living in the United States, economic conditions are already so bad that it feels like a recession has already begun…

In August, roughly 60% of Americans said they believed the U.S. was in a recession, according to a survey from Affirm. Further, in October, more than half of Americans said they were worse off than they were four years ago, according to a Gallup poll.

If you are doing better than you were four years ago, you should consider yourself to be incredibly blessed.

Because the cost of living has been rising faster than paychecks have been, and so for most of us our standard of living has been steadily going down.

The Biden administration keeps telling us that inflation is under control, but the truth is that core consumer prices have risen for 53 months in a row…

The inflation story is far from over… no matter what The Fed or The White House claims…

For the 53rd straight month, core consumer prices rose on a MoM basis in October with the YoY pace re-accelerating to +3.33%…

Once upon a time, I actually enjoyed going to the grocery store.

But now it is so painful.

When I get to the register, I feel like asking the cashier what organ I should sell in order to pay for my groceries.

Sadly, we have reached a point where more Americans than ever are just barely scraping by from month to month. In fact, Bank of America is telling us that the proportion of the U.S. population that is living paycheck to paycheck rose by 12 percent from early 2022 to the second half of 2024…

However you define “paycheck to paycheck,” more of us seem to be living that way.

In the Bank of America surveys, the share of consumers who said they lived from paycheck to paycheck has gradually risen, from about 35% in early 2022 to 47% in the third quarter of 2024.

Obviously, economic conditions in this country have been trending in the wrong direction for quite a while.

So what will our country look like if we keep going down this path?

At this stage, more than 20 percent of all U.S. renters already have to use “all of their regular income” just to pay the rent…

Just over one in five (22%) U.S. renters say all of their regular income goes directly to paying their rent, according to a recent Redfin-commissioned survey.

Working a second job is also a fairly common way for renters to pay housing costs, with 20% of renters citing that method. Nearly the same share (19%) say they have worked a job they hated to afford rent.

The bottom levels of the economic food chain are getting absolutely crushed.

In a desperate attempt to stay afloat, many Americans are piling up staggering amounts of debt. According to the New York Federal Reserve, total credit card debt in the U.S. just reached another brand new all-time record high…

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

(End of the American Dream)—A mysterious disease that produces “flu-like” symptoms and that is killing a very high percentage of those that it infects has suddenly appeared in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and scientists have no idea what it is.  So far, this mystery disease does not appear to be related to H5N1, monkeypox, Ebola, the Marburg virus or any of the other deadly bugs that are currently spreading around the globe. Perhaps after more testing is done, scientists will discover that there is a very simple explanation after all.  And let us hope that this new outbreak turns out to be fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things.  But in Matthew 24, Jesus did warn us that there would be multiple “pestilences” in the days just before His return.  So when a new disease suddenly appears and starts killing lots of people, it is worth keeping an eye on.

The epicenter for this outbreak is right along the Democratic Republic of Congo’s border with Angola, and we are being told that dozens of victims are already dead…

AN UNKNOWN “flu-like” disease targeting women and children has killed 143 within two weeks.

Those infected in Congo have suffered from symptoms including high fever and severe headaches with the World Health Organisation launching an urgent probe.

Deaths are being recorded in Kwango province, situated in the Southwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and on its border with Angola.

If this mystery disease is “targeting women and children”, does that mean that adult men are not being affected? Hopefully we can get some clarification on that.

It is being reported that a total of 376 people have gotten sick so far, but it is not clear how they were able to determine that everyone has the same thing if they are not able to identify the disease…

The country’s health ministry also warned people to wash their hands regularly with soap and water and not to touch dead bodies.

A total of 376 people have been sickened in the outbreak, that has hit Kwango province in the southwest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

It is very early in this outbreak, and so the numbers that we are being given are very fluid.

But if there really are 143 total dead out of 376 total victims, that is a very, very high death rate.

Many of the symptoms that victims are experiencing are exactly what you would expect if you caught the normal flu…

Patients are mostly children over 15 years old, officials say, and are suffering from a flu-like illness with symptoms including a fever, headache, nasal discharge, cough, difficulty breathing and anemia — or a lack of healthy red blood cells.

I don’t see anything there that would set it apart from normal winter illnesses.

And that also makes it potentially extremely dangerous.

We shall see how this plays out.

For now, one local leader is warning that “the number of infected people is increasing” and that people are literally dropping dead in their own homes…

Civil society leader Cephorien Manzanza said that the situation on the ground is extremely worrying as the number of infected people is increasing. “Panzi is a rural health zone, so there is a problem with the supply of medicines,” Manzanza said.

Due to a lack of medical facilities and a dilapidated health infrastructure, infected people are forced to die in their homes.

A local epidemiologist said women and children were the most seriously affected by the disease.

This sounds very serious.

But let’s not jump to any conclusions quite yet.

Tests are being conducted on this new disease, and authorities are promising to release results as soon as they can…

The Ministry added in its update: ‘Laboratory test results will be communicated as soon as they are available, and regular updates will be shared with the population and partners.

‘Pending the conclusions of the ongoing investigations, the Ministry calls on the population to remain calm, vigilant and to strictly respect the… preventive measures.’

Of course this new outbreak comes at a time when the Democratic Republic of Congo is already struggling to contain an unprecedented monkeypox outbreak…

Meanwhile, the DRC is also contending with a major mpox outbreak, which was declared a public health emergency of international concern in August. In early November, the total number of suspected mpox cases across the continent of Africa topped 50,000, with the DRC bearing a high percentage of those cases.

Scientists are telling us that this new strain of the monkeypox spreads much more easily than the strain that caused so many problems around the globe in 2022, and it also has a much higher death rate.

So I am keeping a very close eye on that too.

Meanwhile, the Marburg virus has gotten loose in Rwanda…

Marburg, also termed as the ‘Bleeding Eye’s virus due to one of its symptoms (bleeding of the eye), has killed 15 people in Rwanda and has left hundreds of them infected, reports The Mirror.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) identifies the disease to be severe, often resulting in fatal illness in humans. “The average MVD case fatality rate is around 50%. Case fatality rates have varied from 24% to 88% in past outbreaks,” the WHO says in a report which was updated in October 2024.

After what we went through earlier in this decade, I know that there are lots of people out there that don’t want to hear this sort of news.

But if we really are living in the end times, major pestilences will be a major theme.  Jesus specifically warned us about this in Matthew 24.  He didn’t give us this warning so that we would be afraid.  He gave us this warning so that we would not be afraid.

If you understand what is coming, you can get prepared for it.

Sadly, most of the population is not interested in such warnings, and so when the next great global health crisis reaches our shores they will be completely blind-sided by it.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

This is a huge mystery, and hopefully the experts can get us some answers because this phenomenon appears to be intensifying.

According to the New York Post, these strange booming sounds in the sky have been “terrifyingly rocking the globe” in 2024…

This one’ll have you quaking.

Scientists have little explanation for a booming phenomenon that’s terrifyingly rocking the globe — though they have been noted as ominous preludes to earthquakes.

Yes, there have been cases where “skyquakes” have preceded significant earthquakes, but most of the time “skyquakes” are not linked to any seismic activity at all.

For example, southern Idaho was recently rattled by a serious of very loud “booms”, but there were no sizable earthquakes at that time…

Social media has been going crazy over the last 48 hours with inquires about loud ‘booms’ heard around Southern Idaho.

If you’ve lived in the Twin Falls area for any length of time, you are probably familiar with the occasional bouts of rumbles we feel from time to time. It’s not unusual for the booms to resonate throughout a building and shake windows, debatably similar to what you might feel during an small earthquake. But these (usually) are not earthquakes… So what are they?

At this point, we have more questions than answers.

According to Wikipedia, “skyquakes” have been happening literally all over the planet, and most of the time it is not clear why they have happened…

A skyquake is a phenomenon where a loud banging sound is reported to originate from the sky. The sound may cause noticeable vibration in the ceiling or across a particular room. Those who experience skyquakes typically do not have a clear explanation for what caused them and they are perceived as mysterious. They have been heard in several locations around the world, several locations in the North Sea, the Ganges, Canada, Colombia, Japan, Finland, Australia, Italy, Ireland, India, The Netherlands, Norway, Tierra del Fuego in Argentina, the United Kingdom, the United States, Mexico, Malaysia (particularly Ipoh) and Indonesia (particularly Jakarta and Java).

Scientists had theorized that many of these “skyquakes” were probably linked to low level seismic events, but a study that was conducted in 2020 appears to have ruled that out…

In 2020, a team from the University of North Carolina conducted an extensive analysis of seismic and acoustic data from the EarthScope Transportable Array (ESTA). This network of over 400 stations across the United States is designed to detect both seismic events and atmospheric phenomena. The researchers aimed to establish a correlation between skyquakes and previously undetected seismic activities. However, their findings yielded no direct link between these mysterious sounds and earthquakes or other underground activities.

This lack of connection to seismic events lends credence to the theory that skyquakes originate in the atmosphere. However, the exact nature of the phenomenon remains unclear.

The bottom line is that there is a lot that we do not know.

But we do know that very loud “booms” are happening in the sky, and we do know that they have been making frequent headlines all over the globe in 2024.

Hopefully the fact that they are occurring so often is not a bad sign.

On a related note, an asteroid that was discovered just several hours in advance was “on a collision course” with our planet on Tuesday morning…

A newly discovered asteroid is on a collision course for Earth and will hit our atmosphere in just a matter of hours.

The asteroid, designated COWECP5, is forecasted to streak through the sky over Eastern Siberia at 11:14am ET.

Scientists say the small space rock, measuring 27 inches in diameter, is expected to burn up in the atmosphere and poses no threat to humans on the ground.

The good news is that this particular space rock was so small that it was never a threat to anyone. But it did put on quite a show when it exploded over Russia…

The space rock exploded in a stunning red light over Yakutia, soaring over the bright city lights and was seen firing off flames as it flew over Olekminsk.

In many cases, incoming asteroids are not detected in advance or are only detected once they have flown by us.

In this case, scientists were able to see this one seven hours before it arrived…

It was detected seven hours before it is due to hit, which is only the 12th time scientists have accurately reported an asteroid before it struck.

This event will also marks the fourth asteroid to hit Earth’s atmosphere this year.

A lot of people think that our scientists have a really good handle on any potential major threats to our planet that are floating around out there.

Unfortunately, that is not true at all.

Over and over again, our world has been hit by space rocks that nobody saw in advance.

And it is just a matter of time before we get hit by a really, really big one.

Needless to say, if we do get hit by a really, really big one the lives of every man, woman and child on the entire planet will instantly be turned completely upside down.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

The good news is that you get to be here for it.  All of human history has been building up to this particular chapter, and you are one of the lucky ones that is going to get to experience it.

According to the Institute for Economics & Peace, the number of military conflicts that are currently active is the highest that we have seen since World War II…

Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Syria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia… and so on. There are up to 56 active conflicts in the world, the highest number since World War II. Moreover, these carry an increasingly international component, with 92 countries involved in wars outside their borders. These are data from the latest Global Peace Index produced annually by the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP), a think tank that analyzes everything from military investment and the cost of violence to military laws and deaths in combat in 163 states and territories. “Getting the information is a challenge, but it allows us to compare dynamics. And what we see is a deterioration of peace over the last decade, especially in the last five years,” says Michael Collins, executive director of IEP.

Yes, we really are living at a time of wars and rumors of wars.

In fact, this week there were several more extremely alarming developments.  For a detailed analysis, please see an article that I just wrote entitled “World War III Is Heating Up On Several Fronts, But Most Americans Have No Idea”.  By this time next year, our world will look far different than it does right now.  Leaders all over the globe have developed a really bad case of “war fever”, and we are closer to nuclear war than we have ever been before.

Meanwhile, hunger continues to intensify in many areas of the globe.

If you have plenty of food to eat, you should be quite grateful, because there are tens of millions of starving people that would trade places with you in a second.

In fact, there are tens of millions of people in the nation of Sudan alone that are dealing with severe hunger at this moment…

More than half the people in this nation of 50 million are suffering from severe hunger. Hundreds are estimated to be dying from starvation and hunger-related disease each day.

According to Reuters, every day one woman named Fleg walks two hours each way just to pick a few leaves so that she can fill her stomach with a “barely edible mush”…

So, every day after dawn, Fleg and other emaciated women from the camp make a two-hour trek to a forest to pick leaves off bushes. On a recent outing, several ate the leaves raw, to dull their hunger. Back at the camp, the women cooked the leaves, boiling them in a pot of water sprinkled with tamarind seeds to blunt the bitter taste.

For Fleg and the thousands of others in the camp, the barely edible mush is a daily staple. It isn’t enough. Some have starved to death, camp medics say. Fleg’s mother is one of them.

“I came here and found nothing to eat,” said Fleg. “There are days when I don’t know if I’m alive or dead.”

This is how people are really living on the other side of the planet.

Hunger is rising all over the world, but most Americans do not care because it has not affected them.

I believe that global hunger will get even worse in 2025, and I am convinced that pestilence will also be a major theme during the upcoming year.

Many of us are keeping a very close eye on the bird flu.  It is being reported that the number of confirmed human cases in the state of California this year has now reached 31…

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) on November 27 warned residents about a second batch of raw milk on retail shelves that has tested positive for avian flu virus, as official await the results from the latest bulk milk tank testing on the farm in Fresno County that produces the products.

In other developments, the CDPH reported two more infections in dairy workers, raising the state’s human cases this year to 31, all but 1 involving exposure to sick cows. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed those 2 new cases, pushing the national total this year to 55.

Will this be the next great public health crisis?

I don’t know.

Scientists are also deeply concerned about outbreaks of the Marburg virus, a new strain of Mpox, and Oropouch…

A warning has been issued to travelers over the spread of three diseases, including the Marburg virus. It’s a close cousin of Ebola that’s been dubbed the “bleeding eye” virus due to one of its symptoms.

Marburg, Mpox and Oropouch (commonly called “sloth fever”) are spreading in multiple countries, according to the UK Department of Health’s site, Travel Health Pro.

Marburg is a rare but “severe hemorrhagic fever that can cause serious illness and death,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control says, adding that there is no treatment or vaccine for it. But, if detected early, supportive care with rehydration and symptomatic treatment improves survival, according to the Africa CDC.

I know that a lot of people don’t want to hear this, but what is eventually coming is going to be so much worse than the last pandemic.

We also live at a time when we are getting hammered by major natural disaster after major natural disaster.

In 2023, the number of “billion dollar disasters” in the United States set an all-time record, and we are very close to breaking that record this year…

With the addition of three recent Atlantic hurricanes, the U.S. has experienced 24 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters this year – a near-record number, according to NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI).

On Thursday, NOAA’s NCEI released its assessment of the global climate, including U.S. weather disasters. Hurricanes Debby, Helene and Milton and one tornado outbreak were added to this year’s billion-dollar weather and climate disasters, bringing the total to 24 events as of October.

According to the NCEI, this year’s billion-dollar weather and climate disasters are second only to last year, which had 27 by this point in the year.

Needless to say, a lot of people out there just want to hear that everything is going to be rainbows and lollipops from now on.

But that isn’t the truth.

The truth is that the times that we are living in are going to be extremely challenging.  In my new book entitled “Why”, I explain that God has told us history in advance and that this is extremely powerful evidence for the Christian faith.  If you can show someone that God told us very specific things about the times that we are living in centuries in advance, it is going to be very difficult for that individual to ignore the gospel.

So many “experts” are giving us their opinions about what our future will look like.

But if you want to know what our future is going to look like, just read the Book of Revelation.

We are the Book of Revelation generation, and there is no other time in all of human history that I would have rather lived than right now.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

(End of the American Dream)—In recent months, quite a few pundits have been openly warning us that World War III has begun.  Sadly, those pundits are quite correct.  Right now, a historic global struggle is being waged by two very powerful alliances.  The “western alliance” made up of the United States, Europe, Israel and their allies is engaged in a battle for supremacy with the “eastern alliance” made up of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Syria and their allies.

Over the past week, this battle for supremacy has erupted on a couple of new fronts, but most Americans have no idea what is really going on.

Just look at what is happening in Syria.  Most Americans have no idea that radical Sunni Muslims backed by the western alliance just conducted a highly successful offensive on Syria’s second largest city and are threatening to overthrow the Assad regime once and for all…

The Syrian military and its ally Russia conducted deadly joint air raids Monday on areas that Islamist-led rebels seized control of over the weekend. The strikes were a response to a lightning offensive by the rebels that saw them wrest control of swathes of northwest Syria from government forces.

The conflict that started more than a decade ago took a significant turn several days ago, catching many — including, it seems, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad and his Russian backers — by surprise. On Saturday, rebels, including many with the U.S.-designated Islamic terrorist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), took control of the major city of Aleppo in northern Syria.

The rebels seized Aleppo’s airport and started pushing into towns and villages in the countryside around the city on Sunday after leaving piles of dead government soldiers in the streets. Observers said the rebel forces were often met with little to no resistance by regime forces, but by Monday the pace of the surprise offensive appeared to have slowed, with Assad and his Russian backers ramping-up their response.

While she served as Secretary of State during the Obama administration, Hillary Clinton was instrumental in starting the civil war in Syria.  That civil war caused a massive refugee crisis that western Europe is still wrestling with to this day.

Now the civil war in Syria has freshly erupted, and if Assad gets toppled that will be a major victory for the western alliance.

Of course the eastern alliance does not plan to go down without a fight.  Over the weekend, Iraqi militia groups that are backed by Iran “have been pouring across the border into eastern Syria”…

Widespread reports, including observers on the ground, have indicated that Iran-backed Iraqi militias have been pouring across the border into eastern Syria to assist Damascus in repelling the Islamist militant advance after Al Qaeda splinter group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham took over Aleppo this weekend.

A Syrian army officer has told Reuters that Iraqi militia forces crossing the border are “fresh reinforcements being sent to aid our comrades on the frontlines in the north.”

Many of the fighters have been identified as belonging to the Kataib Hezbollah and Fatemiyoun groups. The US has long been in an internecine conflict with Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq, with over the years periodic rocket fire even targeting the US Embassy in Baghdad, as well as various bases which host remaining American troops.

And it appears that Iranian military forces could be on the verge of intervening directly in the conflict…

Boroujerdi told a news conference in Damascus that Iran was ready to render military assistance to Syria. “Iran’s military aid will be provided as soon as Tehran receives a request from the Syrian government. We are going to announce it immediately,” the Iranian deputy said.

Boroujerdi, who is heading an Iranian delegation, arrived in Damascus on Wednesday for talks with Syrian Vice-Premier and Foreign Minister Walid Muallem. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is expected to meet Boroujerdi on Thursday.

The Iranian deputy stressed the importance of the four-sided coordination of efforts by Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria in fighting terrorism.

Iran normally prefers to fight their wars using proxy forces.

But desperate times call for desperate measures.

Meanwhile, Israel’s ceasefire with Hezbollah seems to be breaking down already…

The ceasefire in Lebanon, barely five days old, is near collapse as of Monday after Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel, following the Biden-Harris administration’s erroneous claim that Israeli surveillance drones violated the agreement.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported Monday that two Hezbollah rockets had been fired at Har (Mount) Dov, a strategic mountain that Breitbart News visited last Thursday and which Hezbollah claims, wrongly, is Lebanese.

If Hezbollah is forced to keep their forces in Lebanon in order to contend with the IDF, they won’t be able to intervene in the conflict in Syria. Ultimately, so many of these conflicts are interrelated.

Ukraine is hoping that at least some Russian forces get diverted to Syria to help the Assad regime, because last month the Ukrainians lost a great deal of territory…

Ukraine has endured a tough three months in which Russian forces made gains across the front, which are likely continue over winter, a military analyst has said.

“The trend is very worrying, and there’s no reason to expect the situation to calm down in December either,” Emil Kastehelmi, from the Finnish-based Black Bird Group, told Newsweek.

In an X, formerly Twitter, thread, the OSINT analyst said that, in the three months to December, Moscow’s troops had captured around 617 square miles in Ukraine and 190 in Russia’s Kursk oblast, where Ukrainian forces had staged an incursion but where they have lost the western flank, as well as positions in the Donbas region.

Ukraine is the one place where the western alliance is losing badly, and western politicians are extremely determined to turn things around.

But the truth is that unless NATO gets directly involved, Ukraine will definitely lose.

As the war drags on, Ukrainian soldiers are deserting from their posts in staggering numbers…

More than twice as many Ukrainian soldiers have been charged with desertion this year than in 2022 and 2023 combined, the Financial Times has reported. The spike in desertions has hampered Kiev’s ability to replenish its thinned-out ranks.

Ukrainian prosecutors opened 60,000 cases against deserters between January and October of this year, the British newspaper reported on Saturday, noting that those convicted face prison terms of up to 12 years.

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have already died on the killing fields of eastern Ukraine.

Let us hope for an agreement that will bring the endless slaughter to an end.

Before I conclude this article, I want to mention one more nation where the great battle between east and west has suddenly erupted.

In Georgia, angry protesters that are being backed by the western alliance have been clashing violently with the police for days.  Just like we witnessed in Ukraine in 2014, it appears that this could be an attempt to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Georgia…

Days of protests have rocked Georgia following the government’s controversial decision to delay the former Soviet country’s bid to join the European Union.

Tensions have been brewing for months in the South Caucasus nation of 3.7 million people, where critics accuse the ruling Georgian Dream party of following increasingly authoritarian, pro-Russia policies in a turn away from the West that has tempered hopes for Georgia’s long-promised path to EU membership.

The protests have been met with a violent police crackdown as the ruling party and thousands of protesters become locked in a deepening battle over the country’s future and whether Georgia should forge closer ties with Russia or Europe.

The U.S. and Europe would love to see a “color revolution” that removes the Georgian Dream party from power.

Of course the Russians and other eastern alliance nations would very much like to avert such an outcome.

I just wish that every country would be allowed to do what they want without outside interference.

But that isn’t going to happen, is it?

Sadly, the great struggle between east and west that we are witnessing is just going to continue to intensify, and at this stage it should be obvious to everyone that it is not going to have a happy ending.

We live in such perilous times, and if you have not been paying much attention to what is going on around the world now would be a great time to start.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Unfortunately, even gang members and individuals that had previously been convicted of committing very serious crimes were allowed to come in without being properly screened.  Now crime is completely and utterly out of control in many areas of the country, and it certainly isn’t going to be easy to clean this mess up.

New York City is more than two thousand miles from the southern border, but like so many of our other major cities it is now being forced to deal with a dramatic rise in crime.  According to the New York Post, terrified residents of the Upper West Side are literally “begging for more cops” because crime has gotten so bad…

The Upper West Side has devolved into a Wild West atmosphere where anything goes, terrified crime victims and neighbors begging for more cops told The Post.

Criminals are more emboldened than ever in the ritzy nabe — with robberies soaring over 30% compared to last year — and carjackers so brazen they flashed their guns without concern on consecutive Sundays in broad daylight.

“I have never felt so scared in this neighborhood the way I feel now,” one of the carjacking victims told The Post this week.

In one of the wealthiest areas of the Big Apple, an “atmosphere where anything goes” now prevails.

How in the world did this happen?

Sadly, the answer is obvious.  It is being reported that there are “almost 60,000 criminal migrants in New York City” at this point…

There are now almost 60,000 criminal migrants in New York City, according to new figures from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The figures, reviewed by The New York Post, show that there are 58.000 illegal migrants who are criminals or are facing criminal charges.

As The Post states, “Of the 759,218 illegal-border crossers living in the Big Apple the feds were aware of as of Nov. 17, a jaw-dropping 58,626—7.7%—were either previously convicted of crimes or had criminal charges pending.”

If our borders were secure, things would be far different.

But now criminals openly sell goods that they have stolen on the sidewalks in some of the ritziest parts of New York City.

Of course it certainly doesn’t help that police officers in New York have their hands tied and that those in authority are not very interested in prosecuting non-violent crimes.  In fact, one veteran NYPD detective recently admitted that criminals are “emboldened by the lack of prosecution for anything in New York City”…

The carjackers and other shameless criminals are “emboldened by the lack of prosecution for anything in New York City,” a veteran NYPD detective said.

“They’re also doing it in broad daylight so they’re not even caring who’s around. [Manhattan District Attorney Alvin] Bragg is going to have to step up and do something,” the detective added.

Sadly, even when migrants commit violent crimes they are often put right back into the streets.

Needless to say, this can often have tragic consequences…

An ******* immigrant with an extensive criminal background was arrested for attempting to kidnap and rape a stranger he captured on a popular Virginia trail days after being released from jail, according to police.

During a press conference Monday evening, the Herndon Police Department announced that Denis Humberto Naverrette Romero, 31, was charged with abduction with intent to defile and rape a stranger he grabbed off a trail.

“Let me start by saying that I am incredibly saddened and outraged that a crime like this could happen here in the town of Herndon,” said Herndon Police Chief Maggie DeBoard.

How many times have we seen women get sexually assaulted by violent criminals that get put back into the streets instead of being deported?

We keep doing the same thing over and over again, and we keep getting the same results.

When will the madness finally end?

As I have discussed previously, unrestrained migration has fueled the tremendous growth of transnational gangs that we have been witnessing.

In addition to selling drugs and trafficking women, these gangs have also been systematically invading homes all over the country.

Now that the homes of NFL players such as Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce are being hit, this crisis is starting to receive the kind of attention that it deserves…

The NFL issued a security alert to team security directors and the players’ union Wednesday about organized and skilled criminals that are increasingly targeting the homes of professional athletes, including the recent burglaries of Kansas City Chiefs stars Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, according to the memo obtained by NFL.com.

Sources say the FBI is investigating the crime wave as international organized crime. The league, the NFL Players Association and team security forces also have been monitoring the crime spree, which is believed to be tied to a South American crime syndicate. At least one other current NFL player’s home was burglarized in the past week.

“It’s legit,” said one source familiar with the situation. “It’s a transnational crime ring, and over the last three weeks, they’ve focused on NBA and NFL players, and it’s all over the country.”

From this point forward, all of our sports stars are going to need armed security at their homes at all times.

Yes, things really have gotten that bad.

These gangs are highly organized, and they “conduct extensive surveillance” in order to determine when the homes of targeted players will be empty…

Multiple people with knowledge of the crimes said the perpetrators are nonconfrontational and do not burglarize homes while residents are inside. Instead, they use public records to find players’ addresses and conduct extensive surveillance. Then, by tracking team schedules and the social media accounts of players and their families, they wait until homes are empty — often during games — and gain access and quickly steal items such as cash, jewelry, watches and handbags, focusing mainly on master bedrooms and closets.

What about you?

Do you live in an area where criminal gangs are starting to take control?

If so, what will you do when things get really bad and desperate criminals decide to invade your home?

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 46.2 million people that were not born in the United States are now living here.

That figure is from 2022, and so it does not reflect the massive surge in migration that we have witnessed over the past couple of years.

They wanted to “fundamentally transform” our country, and they have succeeded.

Now we are facing a crime spree of epic proportions, and it is certainly not going to be fun.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

If they become convinced that we are planning to hit them before they can hit us, that could motivate them to do something really, really stupid.  We are closer to nuclear war than we have ever been before, and we definitely do not need western leaders making provocative statements that are only going to make things even worse.

For example, during a conference in Brussels NATO’s top military official said something that is now making headlines all over the globe.  The following comes from an article posted on MSN News entitled “NATO considers preemptive strikes amid rising tensions with Russia”…

NATO Military Committee Chairman Admiral Rob Bauer stated during a conference in Brussels that NATO leadership is contemplating the possibility of conducting precise preemptive strikes on Russian territory in the event of an armed conflict between Moscow and the Alliance.

It is now being claimed that Bauer was not actually talking about a pre-emptive strike on Russia.

But if you look at his actual words, it certainly seems like that was precisely what he was talking about…

During a question-and-answer session after his address at the European Policy Center in Brussels, Bauer said, “The idea was we are a defensive alliance, so we will only sit and wait until we are attacked, and then when we are attacked, we will be able to shoot down the ‘arrows’ that come to us,” referring to a Russian strike.

He also said that when responding to any attack, it would be “smarter” to “attack the archer, that is…Russia—if Russia attacks us. So you need to have a combination of deep precision (strikes) with which you can take out the weapons systems that are used to attack us.”

Needless to say, the Russians were not amused.

In fact, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov believes that Bauer was essentially announcing NATO’s “real plans”…

The North Atlantic Alliance has ignored all diplomatic protocol, allowing itself to make statements about the possibility of preemptive strikes on Russia, top Russian diplomat Sergey Lavrov said.

“Just the other day, Mr. Bauer, NATO Military Committee Chair, explicitly stated that it’s no longer enough, and ensuring the defense of the North Atlantic Alliance member states requires strikes on targets in Russia that NATO believes may pose a threat to the bloc. I think there’s nothing to comment on here; it’s just that they have forgotten all etiquette, publicly announcing their real plans,” he noted at the 20th meeting of the heads of security and intelligence agencies of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries.

If the Russians become convinced that we are going to hit them first, that will make it much more likely that they will hit us first. We really need to get the Russians to understand that we have no plans to do that.

Meanwhile, a French news source is reporting that European leaders continue to discuss “sending Western troops and private defense companies to Ukraine”…

As the conflict in Ukraine enters a new phase of escalation, discussions over sending Western troops and private defense companies to Ukraine have been revived, Le Monde has learned from corroborating sources. These are sensitive discussions, most of which are classified – relaunched in light of a potential American withdrawal of support for Kyiv once Donald Trump takes office on January 20, 2025.

That is insane!

What in the world are they thinking?

No matter what Donald Trump does when he gets into the White House, our European allies fully intend to continue to escalate this war.

It is madness.

On top of everything else, this week the New York Times has reported that the Biden administration has actually discussed the possibility of arming Ukraine with nuclear weapons.

When Dmitry Medvedev heard about this, he went ballistic…

Moscow will consider any threat of nuclear arms being supplied to Ukraine by the US as preparation for a direct war with Russia, former president Dmitry Medvedev has warned. The actual transfer of nuclear weapons would be tantamount to an attack on the country under Russia’s new nuclear doctrine, he added.

On Tuesday, Medvedev posted a message on Telegram that was quite ominous…

“Give nuclear weapons to a country at war with the largest nuclear power? The idea is so absurd that it raises suspicions about a paranoid psychosis in Joe The Walking Dead and all those who would advise such a move.”

He continued, “Yet I must comment on the nonsense: 1) The very threat of transferring nuclear weapons to the Kyiv regime can be considered preparation for nuclear conflict with Russia;

2) The actual transfer of such weapons can be equated to an act of attack on our country under article 19 of the Fundamentals of State Policy in the Field of Nuclear Deterrence.

The consequences are obvious.”

I don’t think that the Biden administration has any intention of giving Ukraine nuclear weapons right now.

But the fact that they are talking about it is really freaking out the Russians.

I really wish that cooler heads would prevail, but instead both sides just continue to escalate matters.

Over the past few days, Ukraine has launched more long-range missiles provided by NATO into Russian territory, and now the Russians have announced that they are preparing another “response”…

Russia is preparing a response to Ukrainian ATACMS attacks on Kursk Region, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday. Last week, US President Joe Biden authorized Kiev to use US-supplied long-range missiles against targets deep inside Russia’s internationally recognized borders.

In an official statement on Telegram, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that over the past three days, Ukraine’s forces had conducted two long-range strikes on Kursk Region using Western weaponry.

As I discuss in this video, many are anticipating that the Russian “response” will be even larger than last time.

Let us hope that the Russians only use conventional weapons, and let us hope that they limit their targets to Ukraine.

Because the Russians have previously identified a U.S. base in Poland as a potential target, and the Biden administration is making it clear that such a strike would trigger NATO’s Article 5…

White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said Monday that the U.S. has a ‘rock-solid’ commitment to NATO’s Article 5, should Russia strike the new U.S. anti-missile base in Poland. Article 5 is NATO’s principle of collective defense, that if one NATO member is attacked, all other NATO members go to war with the attacker, a world war-style response.

“We take our Article 5 commitments to our NATO Allies incredibly seriously. It’s rock-solid, and that’s not going to change,” Kirby said on Monday, according to Remix News.

Kirby was responding to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who on Thursday said that Russia is considering attacking a new U.S. anti-missile base in Poland.

We are dangerously close to a point of no return.

Once nuclear missiles start flying, there will be no going back.

The Russians have been working extremely hard to prepare for a nuclear war, and meanwhile the U.S. is still relying on hopelessly outdated systems from the 1970s and 1980s.

We must change course while it is still possible to do so.

Unfortunately, it appears that we are about to witness another series of escalations which will push us even closer to the unthinkable.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.