Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Let the Headlines Speak
Sep 16th, 2019
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines

Horror as Sheriff’s Deputies Find 2,246 Aborted Babies at Abortion Doctor’s Home
Klopfer died on Sept. 3. It’s unclear in a statement from the Will County Sheriff’s Office when the fetal remains were found, but the family contacted the office on Thursday. “On September 12, 2019 at approximately 3:30pm, the Will County Coroner’s Office received a telephone call from an attorney representing the family of Dr. Ulrich Klopfer who passed away on September 3, 2019,” a statement from the sheriff’s office reads. “The attorney informed the Coroner’s Office that while going through the doctor’s personal property they discovered what appeared to be fetal remains and requested that the Will County Coroner’s Office provide proper removal. When law enforcement officials arrived, they found remains, all right — 2,246 preserved unborn babies. South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg has been a supporter of a controversial abortion clinic in the Indiana city where the director, Liam Morley, is a former employee of Klopfer’s shuttered clinic.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Gives AOC a Reality Check on Her Dream of Axing the Electoral College
Well, it appears the Notorious RBG doesn’t think too highly about AOC’s dream of nixing the Electoral College. In a speech at the University of Chicago on Monday, Supreme Court justice and liberal hero Ruth Bader Ginsburg derided efforts to ax the Electoral College and elect presidents strictly by popular vote alone, saying that such efforts were “more theoretical than real.”

Bahamas Issues New Tropical Storm Warning as It Struggles to Recover From Hurricane Dorian
The government of the Bahamas has issued a tropical storm warning for several of its northwestern islands, which are still reeling from Hurricane Dorian. The U.S. National Hurricane Center says a tropical cyclone is expected to form in the coming hours near the northwestern Bahamas. The system is emerging about 235 miles (380 kilometers) southeast of Great Abaco Island. The disturbance has maximum sustained winds of 30 mph (45 kph) and is moving to the northwest at 8 mph (13 kph).

Taliban Negotiators Meet With Russian Officials After Trump Ends Talks
Taliban negotiators have held talks with Russian officials in Moscow, in an apparent effort to restart discussions with the U.S. just days after President Trump killed a nearly completed deal to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan and declared negotiations with the insurgent group dead. The Taliban’s representatives met President Vladimir Putin ’s envoy for Afghanistan, Zamir Kabulov, on Friday in the Russian capital, the state news agency Tass said. Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman, confirmed on Saturday that the consultations had taken place.

Netanyahu pledges sovereignty prior to rare settlement approval
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to apply sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea region of Megilot, and then to apply Israeli law over the rest of the West Bank on Sunday. The prime minister spoke at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, which he held this week in the Jordan Valley. After the meeting, ministers are expected to issue rare approval of a new settlement, Mevo’ot Yericho.

US destroyer docks in Beirut Port
The USS Ramage docked at Beirut Port on Saturday, marking the first time that an American vessel has docked in Lebanon in over 30 years. The US embassy tweeted that the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer “entered Beirut Port on September 14 as a symbol of the enduring partnership between the US and Lebanon to ensure security and stability in the eastern Mediterranean.”

Iranian media: Attacks on Saudi Arabia means world needs Iran’s oil
Iran’s Press TV headlined its coverage on Sunday with a not-so-subtle jab at the ramifications of the attack on Saudi oil processing facilities. With Saudi production reduced, the US should give Iran waivers to export oil. To make this argument, Iranian media highlighted experts’ opinions, but the message is clear: Iran’s oil industry can benefit from what happened in Saudi Arabia.

Hong Kong protests: Petrol bombs and water cannon used in clashes
Police in Hong Kong have used water cannon and tear gas against protesters throwing petrol bombs and bricks near government offices in the city. The violence broke out after thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators marched in defiance of a police ban. Earlier hundreds rallied outside the British Consulate, demanding the UK press China to maintain freedoms guaranteed during the 1997 handover.

I create fake videos. Here’s why people believe even the obvious ones
Lots of people—including Congress—are worried about fake videos and imagery distorting the truth, purporting to show people saying and doing things they never said or did. I’m part of a larger U.S. government project that is working on developing ways to detect images and videos that have been manipulated. My team’s work, though, is to play the role of the bad guy.

Turkey: Delivery of second S-400 missile defense system complete
Turkey’s defense ministry said on Sunday that the delivery of a second battery of Russian S-400 missile defense systems has been completed…and added that the systems would become active in April 2020. Ankara and Washington have been at loggerheads over Turkey’s purchase of the S-400 systems, which the United States says are not compatible with NATO defenses and poses a threat to Lockheed Martin’s F-35 ‘stealth’ fighter jets.

Nuclear War With Russia “Winnable” Said Trump’s Incoming National Security Advisor
Questioning “mutual assured destruction,” Charles Kupperman called nuclear conflict “in large part a physics problem.”

Remember those Florida parents whose son was abducted by the state after they refused chemo treatments? The government has now assumed PERMANENT CUSTODY of the child
A Florida judge has officially ruled that the state, and not parents, represents the ultimate authority when it comes to making medical decisions for children.

Russian Billionaire’s Plan To Create A ‘Noah’s Ark’ In Outer Space City Called ‘Asgardia’ Has Already Signed Up Hundreds Of Thousands Of People
Before you laugh, consider this. Without rockets, there would be no spaceships with which to fly into Outer Space. Without airplanes, there would be no rockets. Who was the genius behind finally solving the 6,000-year old puzzle of sustained flight? 2 obscure and unknown bicycle builders tinkering in North Carolina.

Iran-Backed Militants Launch Drone Strike On Saudi Arabia’s Aramco Refineries Wiping Out Over Half Of The Kingdom’s Oil Refining Capabilities
Iran is fighting a proxy war on many fronts including Saudi Arabia and Israel, by supplying weapons and funding to Islamic terror groups in Yemen, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

Death toll rises as torrential rain and floods batter Spain
A 41-year-old man was found dead in south-east Spain on Saturday, the local government said, bringing the death toll as a result of record-breaking rain over the past two days to at least six.

Muslims in Europe on edge as Czech government encourages their citizens to arm themselves and be prepared to shoot Islamic terrorists
The Czech government has proposed a bill stating that ordinary citizens with a weapons permit can engage and shoot to kill terrorists, reports NTB.

Tropical Storm “Humberto” moving near the NW Bahamas, expected to become a hurricane in 2 to 3 days
A tropical depression near the Bahamas strengthened into Tropical Storm “Humberto” at 03:00 UTC on September 14, 2019. Humberto’s latest forecast track takes its center north of the Bahamas and then well off the coast of USA. Intensification is expected while it moves over the warm Gulf Stream waters and Humberto could become a hurricane in 2 or 3 days.

Abortion doctor’s family finds remains of more than 2,200 fetuses at his home after his death: reports
The remains of more than 2,200 unborn children have been found at the illinois home of a former Indiana abortion doctor who died earlier this month, according to reports.

Will McCabe Bring The FBI Down With Him?
…we should be prepared for McCabe carrying out his threat to bring them all down. We may yet find out what really happened in “Andy’s office”.

Islamist Linda Sarsour Becomes Bernie Sanders Campaign Surrogate
Sep 16th, 2019
CommentaryMEIRA SVIRSKY/CLARION PROJECT
Categories: Contemporary Issues

Bernie Sanders has teamed up with Linda Sarsour, who is now working as Sander's campaign surrogate.

For those unfamiliar with the term, a campaign surrogate is a celeb or media personality who goes out on the trail for the campaign, stumping on the candidate's behalf.

Linda Sarsour is an Islamist activist with ties to Muslim Brotherhood and terror-linked organizations, sharia-apologist and self-identified feminist (except, we might assume, when her feminist stances would conflict with sharia law - which we can assume is quite often).

Quite the personality for a candidate for the American president to be aligned with.

Yet for us, the voters, it's nice to have such clarity about a candidate.

Whereas Congresswoman Ilhan Omar made it a point to state that she didn't support the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement against Israel while on the campaign trail, right after she was elected, she declared the opposite -- stating that well, yes, she did support BDS after all.

With Linda Sarsour stumping for him, we now know what he believes in (besides socialism):

Anti-Semitism - Sarsour's record is pretty clear here: She supports to the BDS movement, which has been deemed at its core anti-Semitic (according to the definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the State Department and 31 other countries).

In fact, Sarsour's Women March (of which she is a founder and leader) was so plagued by anti-Semitic scandals that even major Leftist organizations (including Democratic National Committee, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Emily's List and the National Organization for Women, pulled their sponsorship)

Sharia Law - Sarsour has touted sharia governance, tweeting about sharia's prohibition on interest in banking as an indication of how positive a sharia-run society would be (she conveniently left out those nagging problems of the hudud punishments and women's equality). 

She even managed to promote Saudi Arabia at a time when women were forbidden to drive in the kingdom, tweeting, "10 weeks of PAID maternity leave in Saudi Arabia. Yes PAID. And ur worrying about women driving. Puts us to shame."

Muslim Brotherhood - She regularly speaks for Muslim Brotherhood front organizations (designated as such by the U.S. government) and those with terror ties, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).Click here to watch a clip of Sarsour's latest hate-filled speech at the recent ISNA conference. 

At a Muslim American Society joint event with the Islamic Circle of North America, Sarsour posed for a picture with Salah Sarsour, a Hamas operative who was jailed by Israel in the 1990s for working with the terror organization.

That Bernie Sanders - or any candidate - would align themselves with Linda Sarsour and her Islamist agenda should be shocking. Unfortunately, it's not.

Most of the candidates for president from the Democratic party have been pulled to the Far Left by their PC tyrants, which include Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who have served to normalize radicalism and bigotry in the halls of Congress.

If You Were Drew Brees, What Would You Say?
Sep 16th, 2019
CommentaryJOHN STONESTREET/BREAKPOINT.ORG
Categories: Contemporary Issues

"Controversy erupts around Drew Brees," proclaimed news outlets on Friday, the very same news outlets who erupted the controversy engulfing one of the NFL's best quarterbacks.

Here's the story: In a short video, Brees encouraged students to participate in Focus on the Family's "Bring Your Bible to School" project. He never once mentioned anything about sexual orientation or gender identity since, well, that's not what Bring Your Bible to School Day is all about. 

To my knowledge, Brees has never spoken publicly on LGBTQ issues. He really didn't clarify his views even on Friday, when he was forced to respond to the "erupting controversy."

Perhaps Brees hasn't talked much about LGBTQ issues because, again, he's a football player, and that's not what football is about. Or perhaps he's realized, as a public figure who is also a Christian, what would happen if his views were revealed as anything less than a full-throated endorsement of the new sexual orthodoxy.

Either way, Brees seemed honestly surprised by his presumed guilt simply because of a connection to this Focus on the Family project. That in and of itself is a lesson for all of us.

Theologian N.T. Wright suggests that Christians need to ask the question "What time is it?" meaning that Christians should understand where they are in redemptive history - within the overarching historical framework the Scriptures present from the creation to the new creation.

I'd add that Christians should also ask the question "What time is it?" in regard to what cultural moment do we live in? What is being asked and expected of people of faith now, in this time and in this place?

Friday's Washington Post article on Drew Brees is a case in point. Widely assumed by many, especially by Allyson Chiu in the Washington Post piece, is that even associating with anyone who holds less-than-affirming views on LGBTQ issues is no longer acceptable, even if the association is completely unrelated to LGBTQ issues in any way. 

No argument was offered by Chiu or any other critic as to why this is now the case. It was almost as if no argument was necessary.

That's more than a little frustrating, because as one blogger noted recently, any movement that spends years trying to shut down a Denver bakery and discredit a chicken sandwich restaurant is a movement that has, long ago, run out of real injustices to fight.

This second-degree-of-separation guilt-by-association campaign against Brees indicates that the gatekeepers of the LGBTQ movement have moved on, and are now demanding that everything, and I mean everything--from football to business to education to politics to Stranger Things--has to be about this.

As Focus on the Family Jim Daly demonstrated so well in his response to this nonsense, Christians should resist the demand to frame every issue of life and culture around LGBTQ issues. There's so much more to life than this.

It's strange that Christians are constantly being asked why we spend so much time talking about sex. But we aren't the ones turning reality upside down, making this the one issue that every other issue has to be about.

On the other hand, as Mr. Brees found out, we won't always be able to sit this one out. If you are even perceived as being on the "wrong side of history," it may not matter how nice you are.  That means that in this time and in this place, we'll have to be ready to speak to those issues when appropriate or unavoidable.

Christians, what time is it? It's post-sexual revolution, a time in human history in which nearly everything about life and our life together, from our understanding of right and wrong to our understanding of what it means to be human, has been reimagined along the lines of sexuality.

If you were Drew Brees, targeted because of a completely unrelated story about your opinion on homosexuality or gender, what would you say? Too many Christians are unprepared for the tough questions that, like it or not, are inevitable in this time and this place.

But there are answers. And last week, the Colson Center launched a new video series to help. It's called "What Would You Say?" and it provides understandable, repeatable, and convincing answers to the hardest cultural questions.  Be sure to check it out.

Boltonism Must not be Allowed to Disappear
Sep 16th, 2019
CommentaryMELANIE PHILLIPS/JNS
Categories: Contemporary Issues

John Bolton's departure from the Trump administration should have had the left cheering from the rafters.

Bolton has long been a bogeyman in liberal circles on account of his refusal to appease the enemies of America and the West, a disposition that the left regard as belligerent war-mongering.

When Bolton was made National Security Advisor, his liberal foes behaved as if U.S. President Donald Trump had signed up in person one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Now that Bolton's appointment has abruptly terminated, though, there's been no rejoicing from his ideological foes. That's because their blind hatred of Trump means he can never do anything right. So Bolton's ouster is merely viewed sourly as further proof of Trump's psychological flaws.

The curious fact, however, is that the left hate Bolton for reasons very similar to Trump's own inability to see eye-to-eye with him. For the left have more in common with Trump than they would ever care to acknowledge.

On foreign policy, both are isolationists, although for different reasons.

The left never support the West fighting wars in its own interests, viewing it as innately bad and oppressive, while its enemies are inescapably its victims and therefore morally above reproach.

For his part, Trump wants to end America's involvement in foreign wars and doesn't want to get involved in any new ones.

Since Bolton believes in defeating rather than appeasing the enemies of America and the West, and not flinching from military action if that proves unavoidable, this reportedly brought him into repeated conflict with the president.

In the wake of Bolton's departure, members of the administration have been at pains to stress that there will be no let-up in America's policy of reimposing sanctions on Iran.

It is, however, deeply alarming that Trump has proposed talking to the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, with no preconditions.  It's even more alarming that Trump apparently suggested easing sanctions on Iran--the precondition Iran itself has set for such a meeting.

For this sends the unmistakable message that Trump is wavering and America is beginning to cave; and that immeasurably strengthens and emboldens the Iranian regime.

It's been reported that a row with Trump on Monday over precisely this point led to Bolton's exit later that day. And this removal of Trump's principal foreign-policy hawk similarly signals to Tehran that American resolve has collapsed.

Which is why Iran is crowing that America's "warmongering" is a failure. The regime believes that it has taken Bolton's scalp. Which is why Israel has expressed enormous concern about both Bolton's exit and American resolve.

Trump's genuine concern for Israel's security is not in doubt. He also deserves enormous credit for reimposing sanctions to bring the Iranian regime to its knees, having correctly described the Obama-brokered nuclear deal as the worst deal ever.

The problem, however, is that he thinks he can negotiate a better one. Trump's flaw is that he thinks every situation is a potential deal; he thinks that everyone in the world has a price at which they can be bought off.

This is yet another fantasy that he shares with the left. For they also think that everyone is susceptible to a negotiated compromise, even religious or other fanatics for whom rational self-interest can never be the clincher.

The left don't believe in defeating the enemy, however implacable these foes may be. They believe in agreeing a deal with them.

That's why they are so obsessed with peace processes, otherwise known as appeasement processes. These processes cannot acknowledge the non-negotiable aspect of unconscionable agendas because that would cause them to fail. And they cannot be allowed to fail because the alternative is military action, which must be avoided at all costs.

They are therefore a certain route to the surrender of victim to aggressor.

The baleful consequences of this assumption have been laid bare by the former U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis in his new book Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead. This deals with his time as leader of U.S. Central Command from 2010 to 2013, overseeing military operations in the Middle East and Central Asia.

In his book, Mattis tears into former President Barack Obama's strategic ineptitude in failing to take appropriate action against America's enemies. Faced with clear evidence of Iranian "acts of war" against America, Obama did nothing.

In 2011, two Iranians planned a bomb attack on Cafe Milano, a Washington restaurant patronized by the rich and famous, including Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, Adel al Jubeir.

This would have been, writes Mattis, the worst attack on the United States since 9/11. "I sensed that only Iran's impression of America's impotence could have led them to risk such an act within a couple of miles of the White House. Had that bomb exploded, it would have changed history."

Such a plot should have produced a forceful response. "My military options would raise the cost for this attack beyond anything the mullahs and the Quds generals could pay." First, though, Obama needed to make the public understand the "enormous savagery" of the intended atrocity.

But none of this happened. "We treated an act of war as a law-enforcement violation, jailing the low-level courier," he writes.

And then, four years later, Obama brokered the nuclear deal with Iran, which at best would merely delay its nuclear-weapons program by a decade and which enabled millions of dollars in sanctions relief to pour into the regime to fund its murderous activities.

But it's not just Obama who has refused to respond appropriately to Iran's four-decade war against the West.

Even when Iran was killing American and British soldiers in Iraq, or when its proxy army Hezbollah bombed the U.S. embassy in Beirut in 1983, and the Israel embassy and a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994, the West failed to treat these as acts of war.

It failed to do so even after Iran seized a British-registered oil tanker this summer in the Strait of Hormuz and harassed other commercial shipping there.

It was revealed this week that two British-Australian women and one man have been arrested and jailed in Iran, adding to a growing number of British nationals being effectively held as hostages in Iranian jails.

And yet, Britain has not only been a principal cheerleader for the Obama nuclear deal but, along with the European Union, is seeking ruses to get round the sanctions on Iran reimposed by America.

It is still possible that Trump will hold firm against Iran. If he does not, Israel will act alone to defend itself if that becomes unavoidable; and if that happens, the United States will find itself unavoidably sucked into a terrible war.

John Bolton's steady and clear-minded focus on preventing this from happening was a standing rebuke to the feeble-minded West that has supinely stood by as this unconscionable threat by the Iranian regime has remorselessly increased.

Bolton has now left the West Wing; but Boltonism--the strategic grasp of how to defend the West against its mortal foes--must not be allowed to disappear with him.

With Bolton's departure, the world has not become a safer place. It has become far more dangerous.

Abraham Discovered How One Sin Leads to Another
Sep 16th, 2019
Morning MeditationF. B. Meyer
Categories: Commentary;Inspirational;Book Study

When Abraham lost his faith, and went down into Egypt, he also lost his courage, and persuaded his wife to call herself his sister. He had heard of the licentiousness of the Egyptians, and feared that they might take his life, to get possession of Sarah; who, even at the age which she had reached, must have been possessed of very considerable charms.

There was an element of truth in the statement that Sarah was his half-sister; but it was meant as a lie; and it certainly misled the Egyptians, "for she was taken into Pharaoh's house." It was a mean and cowardly act on Abraham's part, which was utterly indefensible. It was a cruel wrong to one who had faithfully followed his fortunes for so long. And it endangered the promised seed. Yet so it happens; when we lose our faith, and are filled with panic for ourselves, we become regardless of all and every tie, and are prepared to sacrifice our nearest and dearest, if only we may escape.

The world may entreat us well (Gen.12:16), but that will be a poor compensation for our losses. There is no altar in Egypt, no fellowship with God, no new promises; but a desolated home, and a wretched sense of wrong. When the prodigal leaves his Father's house, though he may win a brief spell of forbidden pleasure; yet he loses all that makes life worth living, and brings himself down to the level of the swine. In such a case there is no resource, save to retrace the way that we have come, to "do the first works," and like Abraham to go up out of Egypt to the place of the altar where we were "at the first" (Gen.13:4). Abraham's failure in Egypt gives us an insight into the original nature of the patriarch, which was by no means heroic; and betrays a vein of duplicity and deceit, similar to that which has so often re-appeared in his posterity.

How thankful should we be that the Bible does not shrink from recording the story of the sins of its noblest saints! What a proof of its veracity is here, and what encouragement there is for us! --for if God was able to make His friend out of such material as this, may we not aspire to a like privilege, though we, too, have grievously violated the high calling of faith? The one thing that God requires of His saints is implicit obedience -- entire surrender. Where these are present, He can still make Abrahams out of us, though, by nature, the soil of our being is prone to barrenness and weeds.  - F.B. Meyer

60 Percent of Americans Believe a Recession is Coming
Sep 16th, 2019
CommentaryMICHAEL SNYDER/ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG
Categories: Warning

We haven't seen survey results like this since just before the last recession.  Right now, 60 percent of Americans believe that a recession is "very or somewhat likely in the next year", and the reason why that figure is so high is because there is already a tremendous amount of evidence that the economy is slowing down all around us.  

As I have been documenting repeatedly, U.S. economic performance has not been this dismal since 2008 and 2009, and the slowdown seems to be gaining pace as we move toward the end of 2019.  So it really shouldn't be a surprise that a solid majority of the country thinks that the next recession will officially begin very soon.  The following comes from ABC News...

Ratings of the U.S. economy overall, 56% positive, are down from 65% last fall in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates. Most ominously, 60% see a recession as very or somewhat likely in the next year. That's within sight of the 69% who said so in November 2007, in advance of the Great Recession.

But at the same time, U.S. consumers continue to pile up more debt at a frightening pace.

According to NBC News, total revolving credit shot up at an 11.25 annual pace during the month of July...

According to the Federal Reserve's consumer credit tracker, revolving credit -- a category in which credit card debt predominates -- increased at an annualized rate of 11.25 percent in July, the most recent month for which data is available.

"In terms of revolving debt, we see spikes like this every so often, but they don't jump by double digits all that much," said Matt Schulz, chief industry analyst at CompareCards. Typically, big jumps occur around the holidays, though -- not in July.

If a severe economic downturn really is coming, the smart thing to do would be to get out of credit card debt.

But these days Americans have been trained to be very short-term thinkers.  And when things start to get tight, it is really easy to put expenses on a credit card and worry about them later.  This is something that I did when I was a much younger man, and it is something that millions of American families all over the nation are doing right now.

When the money simply isn't there, it is just so tempting to whip out a credit card.  But credit card debt is one of the most insidious forms of debt because of the high interest rates most credit card companies charge.  And at this moment credit card companies are jacking up rates to a degree that we haven't seen in many years...

WalletHub says average credit card APRs for people with good credit and business credit cardholders -- at 20.9 percent and 18.5 percent, respectively -- are the highest they've been since it began tracking rates in 2010.

For people with less than stellar credit, even those rates might be out of reach, McClary said. For example, a new applicant with a credit score in the low 600s might be offered an APR of about 22 percent, he said.

Unfortunately, the more debt that you accumulate, the less likely it becomes that you will ever start building up substantial wealth of your own.

Today, tens of millions of Americans are deep in debt and are working exceedingly hard to make other people rich.  And this is one of the biggest reasons why well over half the nation is currently living in "asset poverty"...

Many Americans claim they simply don't earn enough money to build any type of savings account or amass any meaningful financial assets. Now, a troubling study out of Oregon State University finds some definite statistical truth to these sentiments, concluding that over 63% of American children and 55% of Americans live in "asset poverty."

In other words, most Americans are living right on the edge financially, and that is a very dangerous place to be.  If you are not familiar with the term "asset poverty", the following is a pretty good definition...

Asset poverty means having few or no financial assets to fall back on in the event of a financial calamity, such as losing one's job or encountering a medical crisis. 

Some examples of common financial assets are vehicles, houses, savings accounts, and investments. Without these assets, weathering a financial crisis is extremely difficult.

When you really don't have any real wealth of your own, you are essentially living paycheck to paycheck, and a single major setback can be absolutely disastrous.

In America today, financial difficulties are one of the biggest reasons why so many of us are completely stressed out, and the next recession hasn't even officially begun yet.

But with each day we continue to get more numbers that tell us that big trouble is on the way.  For example, we just learned that the U.S. lost 4,500 trucking jobs last month...

The trucking industry has been battling challenging circumstances so far in 2019 - which includes the loss of thousands of positions last month.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the industry lost 4,500 jobs between July and August.

And of course trucking companies continue to go bankrupt at a staggering pace.  According to Business Insider, more than 600 trucking companies have already gone bankrupt so far this year...

Indicators from the trucking industry have been sour in 2019. In the first half of the year, around 640 trucking companies went bankrupt, according to industry data from Broughton Capital LLC. That's more than triple the number of bankruptcies from the same period last year -- about 175.

Sometimes people think that I exaggerate when I warn people about what is coming.  But the truth is that I am not exaggerating at all.  If anything, I feel frustrated that I am not able to effectively communicate how bad it will actually be when things start to get really crazy.

As a nation, we have been making incredibly bad decisions for decades, and we have been running in the exact opposite direction of where we should be headed as fast as we can.

In life, all decisions have consequences, and we are going to pay an extraordinarily high price for our exceedingly foolish decisions.

For the moment, things are relatively quiet.  But that quietness will not last for much longer.