Catastrophic Drought Could Cripple America

 Here in MN it hasn't rained for over 3 weeks and we just went through the hottest 2 weeks ever recorded for the first 2 weeks of June.  For those of us raising cattle on pasture, the grass had finally come in at the end of May and now the grass is so dry it soon won't provide any food.  They say it's worse in North Dakota.  The corn in our county came up nicely and is now about knee high but is now shriveling and turning brown.

But how about California and other places West?  You can read articles and see photos of Lake Powell and Lake Mead which are down over 140 feet and expected to drop another 40 feet in the next year.  Las Vegas gets ALL of it's water from Lake Powell.  They already put a new pipe into the lake to suck it out from the falling water depths.  And when that straw goes dry can they put in another one?  What happens to the city of Las Vegas (Sin City) when you can't flush toilets or fill the swimming pools or water the golf courses?  Property values fall to ZERO and folks by the millions would literally walk away from their homes and go where?

We have read that 70% of the food that Americans eat comes from the irrigated fields of California.  So what happens if their is no water to irrigate?

Who sends the rain??  God.  And who does America worship??  Not God.

We think we are so smart and can provide everything we need by human ingenuity.  But when God shuts off the rain we realize we are really in control of nothing.

And how about the electricity that these dams out West provide for the millions of households?  What happens when the water stops flowing through the generators?

The widespread drought gripping the western U.S. has drastically reduced California’s hydropower supply. With less electricity coming from hydropower dams, the state may be forced to ramp up gas-fired power generation and ask residents to reduce their electricity use.

Hydroelectric power is generated by capturing the energy of water falling over dams to produce electricity. When water levels in rivers or reservoirs decline, the amount of hydropower generated decreases. In 11 of California’s 12 biggest reservoirs, water levels have fallen well below normal, according to the California Department of Water Resources (CA-DWR).

Already, the state’s hydropower is down by about 40 percent this month compared to the same time last year, according to BloombergNEF (BNEF). Data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows that hydropower output levels haven’t been this low since late 2015.

“California is walking a tightrope,” BNEF analyst Brianna Lazerwitz said, noting that hydropower has provided almost 13 percent of the state’s electricity over the past three years. On August 18 last year, nine percent of its electricity is hydropower, but Lazerwitz predicts that it might have a gigawatt less in the same month this year. “It’s likely that California will be more strained this year than last,” she added.

This decrease in hydro supply comes as rolling heatwaves grip the western U.S. The region is currently facing its worst dry season in two decades, according to data from the U.S. Drought Monitor.

California is among the hardest hit, with 85 percent of the state in extreme or exceptional drought as of June 10. Around three-quarters of its annual precipitation fall between November and March, according to the CA-DWR. But the little snow that fell melted quickly and seeped into the ground instead of flowing into rivers, streams and reservoirs. Now, the state’s snowpack is below normal. (Related: Despite record-breaking drought conditions, California officials are draining reservoirs.)

“Since smaller snowpacks melt faster than larger ones, the lower-than-average snowpack may cause available hydropower generation to peak earlier in the year,” the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said in a May report. “That could mean less hydropower generation would be available to help meet peak electric demand mid- to late-summer.”

Indeed, the California Independent System Operator (California ISO), the nonprofit corporation that runs the state’s power grid, warned in a May report that it might face challenges meeting demand this summer.

To prepare for that possibility, California utility giant Pacific Gas & Electric Company holds back on the use of its hydropower dams to have enough water in the reservoirs when temperatures soar. “We have been conserving water in our reservoirs so that we have that same available volume for peak,” said CEO Patricia Poppe.

Last Tuesday, June 15, California ISO said that it might need to ask residents to reduce their electricity use to avert blackouts. It noted that while there is still enough power supply, disruptions such as downed power lines and mechanical failure at power plants could shake things up. Should the power supply drop, it might call this year’s first “Flex Alert” and ask people to conserve energy from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. from Wednesday to Thursday.

“We don’t expect rotating outages this week,” said California ISO spokesperson Anne Gonzales. “But we are going to see some tight supplies. Our main message is one of conservation.”

The state may also need to turn to gas-fired power plants even as it pushes to reduce its use of carbon-based electricity. “When the Western grid loses hydropower, it has to be replaced by something. And almost always, that replacement is electricity from natural gas power plants,” Jordan Kern, a professor of forestry and environmental resources at North Carolina State University, told NPR.

Here;  https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-06-17-drought-strain-on-california-hydropower-supply.html

As you read the Old Testament it's very clear that God used drought and famine to move his people from here to there, to punish them and to make them repent.  God says "I never change".  So could He use a catastrophic drought to punish America and bring us to our knees?

"But Dennis!  This is America!  God loves us unconditionally and He only brings us blessings and never curses!"

Yep!  That's what the false gospel of "wealth and prosperity" has been teaching millions of American Christians.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

"All is Well!"...They Tell Us

 What could possibly go wrong??  We have help wanted signs everywhere!  Bulldozers are clearing land so fast for construction projects that they can't keep up!  New houses being built faster than they can supply the lumber!  New government spending projects are going to goose the economy even more!  The stock market is at a RECORD HIGH!  Housing prices are at a RECORD HIGH which has just increased the net worth of American's by $trillions. Restaurants are back at full capacity!  Marriage venues have to be booked over a year in advance!

We keep hearing the words of Jesus bouncing around in our heads; "As it was in the days of Noah...people were marrying, giving in marriage, eating, drinking up to the day that Noah entered the ark.  And they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all way.  It was the same in the days of Lot.  People were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting and building.  But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all."

If ever we are in the days of Noah, it would seem to be now.  And at the same time there is a severe famine in the USA of the hearing of the Word of God and in the belief in Jesus' work on the cross as the ONLY way for men to be saved.

Day after day...

... the media glibly try to make revolutionary jargon, political perfidy and socialist disaster look normal, even optimistic. All is well, they tell us, even though foreign and domestic politics are a looming catastrophe. Trillionaire mystery men deal in programs and projects. Their innermost plans are global, rather than national in scope. Alcohol and cannabis are everywhere. Churches are fading away, as pseudo-religions explode throughout society, most of them in some way socialist in belief. And everywhere, there is the endless search for new and different kinds of entertainment.

Meanwhile, Christians shudder at their children's’ corrupted curriculum, with its unspeakable theories and the failure to teach math, English, the basic sciences and history. A composite blend of Marxist philosophy, pseudo-psychology, and even gender identity changes by the minute, crashing the classic understanding that male and female were created by God. 

How could this have happened, given that America has been the land of the Gospel, of great seminaries and of countless revivals, sent here and abroad by men who were steeped in the myriad truths of Scripture? Many Scriptures throughout the Bible make the answer to this question crystal clear.

But one, written by Paul in the opening chapter of Romans, says it all, as he describes seven steps of man’s descent from spiritual to secular:

“Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things” (Rom. 1:21-23).

1. Man knew God. The Lord had done everything possible to reveal Himself, but the nature of man is to refuse Him, and to not glorify Him as God. We are a land that has often been the source of Christian revival. Dozens of now-famous evangelists have preached to the world. Millions have been saved. A new life in Christ is a well-known idea. But in today’s America, in corporations and schools, it has been put to sleep. We have taken Him for granted.)

2. We have glorified our ability to exist with God. Technology has, in many ways, become our god. It gives us anything we want… food, health, comfort and security. We can make anything we want. And now, it is even intelligent!)

3. Why thank God, when we can provide for ourselves?

4. Mankind fell victim to atheistic theories and developed a myriad of bizarre “explanations” of an ancient nature that came into existence without a god.

5. God’s wisdom and knowledge was gradually removed.

6. Man’s knowledge base became corrupted. He began to believe his own theories. He became a fool.

7. God was modeled into mythology and later, pseudo-science. It is this science that atheist man worships today. And what does Paul say happened next? The 24th verse says it all:

“Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.” (Rom 1:24,25).

The Lord stands, awaiting man’s return to His lovingkindness and truth. Cherish your faith above all.

Here;  All is Well, They Tell Us! (mailchi.mp)

Also a few things to remember.  Noah and his family was taken OFF the planet before the the flood came.  Lot was taken AWAY from Sodom before fiery wrath poured down and killed everyone.  In the same way, Jesus will snatch His bride AWAY from the earth before destruction, wrath and fire comes for all those left behind.

The Coming Backlash Against Woke Public Schools

 We recently heard that a school district close to us has terminated 70 teachers for next school year.  We wondered how that could be?  This community is building houses faster than it can clear land.  The answer could be partly due to the fact that parents are getting sick of these Leftist indoctrination centers and are opting to home school or send them to private schools.

Dennis Prager recently said that if America is going to survive that all conservatives need to remove their kids from public schools immediately.  We would agree.

The reports coming out of the school systems of Portland, Ore., and its suburbs are simply terrifying. Children are being taught the narrative that America is fundamentally evil, and the rioters who continue to wreak havoc on that once-beautiful, quiet city are held up as heroes. As Christopher Rufo has reported, “The schools have self-consciously adopted the ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’ as their theoretical orientation, activated through a curriculum of critical race theory and enforced through the appointment of de facto political officers within individual schools.”

And it is working. The schools have become, Rufo notes, “a school-to-radicalism pipeline.”

But it is not just in radicalized Portland or Seattle where these forces hold sway. In my own home county of Loudoun County, Va., the radicals have seized control and plunged with abandon in a radical direction, leaving much of our community gasping at the temerity of their tactics and shuddering at the implications for the future of our community and our nation should they succeed.

Loudoun is the school district that suspended its teacher, Tanner Cross, for having the audacity to speak for one minute at a recent school-board meeting in opposition to a proposed sexual/political mandate. Let that sink in. Before the policy was in place, a highly regarded teacher was suspended for simply disagreeing with a proposed policy.

The legal organization I lead, Alliance Defending Freedom, represents Tanner. I was astounded when, in the midst of a hearing seeking a temporary injunction to reinstate him, which the court granted Tuesday, the school district’s lawyer volunteered the fact that he was the eighth employee in the past two years who has been suspended for out-of-school speech. Apparently, consistently violating the First Amendment rights of its employees makes everything all right in the minds of this school district.

Parents know that the curriculum has recently turned hard to the left. Racial and sexual politics are the prime directive of the school system. Every child will be immersed. And every teacher will recite the party line. No dissenting allowed.

The school district seems oblivious to the fact that they are losing not just conservative parents, but the great bulk of the middle-of-the road families who simply want their children to get a quality academic education.

Here;  Woke Public Schools: Backlash Building | National Review

Conservatives need to understand that sending your child to Sunday school for 45 minutes per week to get a Biblical worldview will have a tough time undoing all the godless worldview they learned at public schools for the past 5 days.

Eating Ourselves to Death

Did you know that Starbucks spends more on health insurance for employees than it does on coffee?  How about General Motors spending more for health insurance than it does for steel??

So why is America spending so much on health care and insurance?  Because we are quite literally eating ourselves to death.  Obesity is out of control.  And sadly, obese people are more depressed, so they need drugs.  They can't sleep, so they need drugs.  They have bad knees and bad backs so they need surgery and drugs.  The list goes on and on.

American's like to point to other nations like Norway and say, "See!  They have universal health care and it only costs a fraction of what we pay!!"  Have you been to Norway lately?  Friends who have been there recently tell me you can't find a fat person anywhere...unless you run into other tourists from America.

No doubt there are many reasons for our obesity and gluttony.  I do know it's cheaper to eat crap from McDonalds than it is to buy health food at a grocery store.  But I also know it's a lot easier to lay on the sofa and eat chips all day than it is to get outside and go for a long walk.

In the end, the Bible has a handful of verses on gluttony.  Often times it can be a spiritual problem and it can point out a false idol in our lives.  Just like some are carried away by an addiction to alcohol or drugs. others are carried away by an addiction to food.

Check out this video from Prager University on Overmedicated America

Overmedicated America | PragerU

Proverbs 23:21  

for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags.

In the end, America may simply implode on itself as we become poor because of our drug, alcohol and food addictions.

Is America's Raging Inflation Problem Accelerating?

 Not so very long ago Subway had an advertisement that they played over and over again about $5 footlongs.  They had a "cold cut combo" on that $5 menu that I purchased quite a few times.  Today I just bought one and it was $7.50.  And that was the cheapest footlong on the entire menu.  Other footlongs that used to be on the $5 menu were $8 or $9.

That's just one small example.  I think we probably all realize that groceries have gone up a lot in the past year.  Just a year ago there were some places in the Minneapolis area that had gasoline for $.99 cents per gallon.  Today it's $2.74.

So is it possible that the inflation genie has already left the bottle?  With interest rates at 0% at the bank maybe people will start to believe that it's smarter to buy a new truck, a new car, a new ATV, a new swimming pool or a new anything!  If you knew a new ATV was going to cost $20,000 a year from now and you could buy it for $10,000 today and sell it for 50% more on the used market next year, you would cash in all your savings and buy anything and everything.

Of course if all American's start doing that then the demand will keep pushing the prices up, up, up.  Eventually people start to lose confidence in the US Dollar as a storehouse for wealth because it's value keeps decreasing.  And that's when a real pickle would start.  The repercussions would ripple all across the entire world.  

#1 Inflation tends to hit those at the bottom of the economic food chain the hardest, but at this point even most millionaires say that they are "concerned about inflation"...

This is a major worry for most wealthy investors, according to CNBC's latest millionaire survey. As many as 65% of millionaires are concerned about inflation caused by recent government spending, according to the report. Of those, 34% said they were very concerned.

The survey, conducted online in April and May by Spectrum Group on CNBC's behalf, had 750 respondents with investable assets of $1 million or more.

#2 The biggest banks in the world are now sounding the alarm about the inflation crisis.  

This week, a team of analysts from Deutsche Bank warned that "neglecting inflation leaves global economies sitting on a time bomb"...

We worry that inflation will make a comeback. Few still remember how our societies and economies were threatened by high inflation 50 years ago. The most basic laws of economics, the ones that have stood the test of time over a millennium, have not been suspended. 

An explosive growth in debt financed largely by central banks is likely to lead to higher inflation. We worry that the painful lessons of an inflationary past are being ignored by central bankers, either because they really believe that this time is different, or they have bought into a new paradigm that low interest rates are here to stay, or they are protecting their institutions by not trying to hold back a political steam roller. 

Whatever the reason, we expect inflationary pressures to re-emerge as the Fed continues with its policy of patience and its stated belief that current pressures are largely transitory. 

It may take a year longer until 2023 but inflation will re-emerge. And while it is admirable that this patience is due to the fact that the Fed's priorities are shifting towards social goals, neglecting inflation leaves global economies sitting on a time bomb.

#3 Housing prices continue to soar into the stratosphere in the United States.  

These days, investment funds, wealthy individuals and foreigners are all gobbling up homes in anticipation of making huge profits, and this is making things extremely difficult for ordinary home buyers.  Earlier, I found the following message from one exasperated home shopper on a popular discussion forum...

It's crazy. Soon as it hits the market tons of offers.

Mostly Investors and flippers.

Real estate Agent's telling me things like.

"We've got Rich guys as far out as Hawaii buying houses sight unseen. They'll even buy them in bulk. Anything from dumps to mansions.'

We've got Chinese snatching up properties, Bill Gates, Businesses, and like I said flippers. It's Impossible!

Auction sites along with gov seized properties are flooded with the same types.

Can not compete you'll be outbid by thousands upon thousand of dollars way above market value.

Any tricks or strategies to buy a house? Anything that may not have all the greedy jerks swarming over them?

A family seriously needing to actually live in a place seems completely s.o.l

It's not just my area that's hot right now its everywhere.

Please if anyone has good advice would be appreciated. Thanks

#4 Used car prices have now officially entered "absurd" territory.  

This week, we learned that the Used Vehicle Value Index has shot up by 26 percent so far in 2021...

Prices of used vehicles sold at auctions around the US in May spiked by 4.6% from April, by 26% year-to-date, and by 45% from April 2019, according to the Used Vehicle Value Index released today by Manheim, the largest auto auction operator in the US and a unit of Cox Automotive.I used to recommend buying used vehicles to people because I thought that most of the time you could get a better value, but at this point I am reversing my recommendation.

In this environment, I would strongly encourage everyone to consider buying new vehicles because used vehicles have become so ridiculously expensive.

#5 Food prices continue to surge higher, and I continue to see reports of intermittent shortages around the nation.

Down in Florida, Papa Bee's Owner Lorie Hamm says that only a limited number of cases of chicken wings are being made available to restaurants in her area, and she also says that the price for such cases has nearly doubled since the start of 2021...

"There's 300 cases that are allocated for two counties I believe, they were gone in two minutes," Hamm said.

At the beginning of the year, a case of wings sold for $70-90 a case. Now they are about $150 a case.

When you begin to wildly create new money, this is what happens.  Prices go haywire and shortages tend to occur.

Unfortunately, our leaders don't seem to have even a basic understanding of the laws of economics, and the pain that we have experienced so far is just the tip of the iceberg.

If they were smart, global authorities would be taking emergency measures to get inflation under control before it is too late.

Of course that is not happening.  Instead, they just continue to feed the monster.

This crisis is going to go from bad to worse, and you should prepare accordingly.

Here;  5 Signs That America’s Raging Inflation Crisis Is Accelerating (prophecynewswatch.com)

The Bible seems clear that at some point during the Great Tribulation that men will be working all day long just to earn enough to buy just enough food to keep them alive for another day.  Could this inflation we are seeing today be just one other sign of how close we are to the Great Tribulation?  If so it means we are even closer to the rapture of the church.