📢 Forum Update - Hello everyone! I've made an improvement to the forum that should make following active discussions much easier. Beginning today, forum topics will display the most recent replies first (while keeping the original topic post at the top), so you no longer have to navigate through multiple pages to find the latest conversation. This change also helps improve the browsing experience in long-running discussions with many pages of replies. If you notice anything that doesn't seem to be working correctly or have any feedback, please let me know. — Richard G. Retail stores are being shut down at a staggering rate all over the country. If we stay on the pace that we are on, the total number of stores closed in 2024 will be nearly 40 percent higher than the total number of stores closed in 2023. That is what you call a crisis! Meanwhile, banks are shuttering hundreds of branches from coast to coast, and a “restaurant apocalypse” is sweeping across the nation. Everywhere around us, “space available” signs are going up on buildings that were once considered to be prime commercial real estate. If someone tries to convince you that the U.S. economy is in good shape, just show them this article and ask them why so many once-prosperous businesses are closing. Needless to say, they will not be able to win the argument after that. According to the Daily Mail, nearly 2,600 store closings were announced during the first four months of 2024… Big names including Macy’s, Walmart, Walgreens, Foot Locker and 7-Eleven have all said they are closing shops. But discount stores like Family Dollar and bankrupt 99 Cents Only have been worst hit, as have drugstores like CVS and Rite Aid. If the U.S. economy is heading in the right direction, why are many of the largest retail chains in the U.S. shutting down stores? If the closures were to continue at the same rate for the rest of the year they would total 7,800 in 2024 – almost 40 percent more than the total in 2023. When the number of retail stores shutting down goes up by 40 percent in a single year, that is a sign that your economy is really “booming”, eh? Sadly, we are losing more stores with each passing day. In some cases, stores are being closed down due to rapidly slowing economic conditions. But in other cases, stores are being permanently shuttered due to the unprecedented wave of retail theft that never seems to end. “Shrink” is costing U.S. retailers more than 100 billion dollars a year at this point. For a long time, I have been warning that “chaos” would be coming to the streets of America. Now it is here. And it is getting worse every single day. Unfortunately, most Americans still don’t understand the fundamental transformation that is happening to our society and they still believe that our leaders will be able to return things to “normal” eventually. Guest post by Leo Hohmann at Substack – republished with permission. Says Leo: Must-read article I hope everyone will share with their sleeping friends and family members; If our people knew how close we are to nuclear war they would be in the streets demanding peace talks now! Some Westerner commentators, even some very smart ones, still deny that nuclear war is a real possibility in today’s world, or if it is, it’s very remote. My sense is that it’s not remote at all, given the leadership we now have in Washington. If what we’ve seen so far is any indication, the Third World War will start as a conventional war between the U.S./NATO and Russia and quickly escalate to nuclear warheads exploding on military and civilian targets. Why do I believe this? It doesn’t matter if you like Putin, hate Putin or are indifferent towards Putin, there are some indisputable facts: Below is an excellent analysis by economist and attorney James Rickards explaining how we got to this point and why it’s not likely to end well. Russia has met the escalation with its own escalation every step of the way. At what point do rational leaders in the West (if there are any left) pause, consider that the war is lost in Ukraine, deescalate and seek a treaty to end the war? ... The U.S. and Russia already adhere to what’s called the “launch on warning” doctrine. This means that if you detect incoming nuclear missiles, you don’t wait for them to hit their targets. Instead, you launch your counterattack as soon as you detect the missiles. When it comes to nuclear war, it’s use it or lose it. That puts the world on a hair trigger. Hitting a radar facility that’s part of a nuclear defense creates a blind spot in that defense and makes the hair-trigger even more sensitive and launch- prone. ...NATO’s arming and equipping of Ukraine was never a red line for Russia. Western observers simply assumed that providing HIMARS, ATACMSs and tanks would be red lines for Russia. But Russia never specifically said they were. They warned about the overall threat of escalation, but these weren’t specific red lines. But direct attacks on Russian soil are a different matter. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin himself have issued specific warnings about NATO facilitation of attacks within Russia itself. That’s the difference. Russia regards all long-range weapons used by Ukraine as already being directly controlled by servicemen from NATO countries. This is no military assistance, this is participation in a war against us. And such actions could well become a casus belli. Nobody today can rule out the conflict’s transition to its final stage. ...Ukraine is trying to drag the U.S. directly into the war with U.S. boots on the ground. Events may not get that far. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/06/dire-warning-economist-jim-rickards-are-they-trying/ Just days before Germany and the rest of the Europe votes on the next European Parliament, the migrant stabbing of a right-wing activist shocked the country, apparently bouncing the government into suddenly announcing a deportation plan for extremists. An Afghan migrant launched a mass knife attack on a right-wing political event in the city of Mannheim, Germany last week. Several people were stabbed including a veteran anti-Islamification campaigner, and a police officer responding to the attack was killed. The attack came just days before Germany — and many other European states — is due to vote in a major European election, and the anti-mass migration right having their point so brutally underlined appears to have seriously alarmed the progressive coalition government. Germany has been looking into being able to deport unwanted migrants back to Afghanistan for months, but last week’s terror attack seems to have brought the matter crashing to a head, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz now promising to deport migrants guilty of serious crimes, and those immigrants that may celebrate or glorify terrorist attacks. Germany’s Die Welt reports Sahra Wagenknecht, formerly of the hard-left Die Linke (‘The Left’) party... said, speaking to Welt: “I find it scandalous that someone who has no protection status, no right to asylum, stays in our country for over ten years… We basically financed his radicalization as well. He lived off us, off the money of the citizens.” Dutch populist leader Geert Wilders declared his Party for Freedom was the “biggest winner” in the country’s EU Parliament elections on Thursday as exit polls predict massive gains for the anti-mass migration party. The Dutch politician also said that the large vote share received by his party will likely be replicated by other anti-mass migration parties throughout Europe as they head to the polls this week, saying: “You will see that the Eurosceptical voice will grow and become stronger within the European Parliament… And that is of course very good news. A signal to the elites in Brussels that things will change.” Thursday evening also saw success for the upstart Farmer Citizen-Movement (BBB) party, which is projected to have beaten out multiple parties to win at least two seats in the EU Parliament. Despite having only been formed in 2019, the tractor protest party is building a history of success, having won a stunning upset last year in the provincial elections to become the largest party in the Dutch Senate on the heels of an outpouring of anger at the green agenda of Brussels ... Commenting on Thursday’s results, BBB leader Caroline van der Plas said: “I’m so happy, so happy! European elections are far away for many people, but you can see from the turnout that people thought: we just have to get in.” The United Methodist Church (UMC) lost more than a million members in one fell swoop last week, with a large West African conference voting to leave the organization due to its acceptance of LGBT clergy and marriages. The United Methodist Church of Ivory Coast (Eglise Méthodiste Unie Côte d’Ivoire or EMUCI) renounced their UMC membership on May 28 “for reasons of conscience before God and His word,” La Croix International reported. After holding UMC membership since 2008, EMUCI said the church “deviates from the Holy Scriptures” and prefers “to sacrifice its honor and integrity to honor the LGBTQ community.” EMCUI’s decision comes in response to the U.S.-based UMC’s vote in May to repeal the decades-long ban on LGBT clergy and marriages, which sparked a mass exit of congregations around the world. The UMC’s decision passed 692-51 at its general conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, NPR reported. More than 4,000 congregations exited the UMC in just the first six months of 2023 over its embrace of LGBTQ+ ideology, Breitbart News reported. As the organization continues to hemorrhage members, the Korean Methodist Church — which has about 1.5 million members — is also considering leaving, the Christian Post reported Monday. “Homosexuality cannot be accepted until the Lord returns. This is not an emotional issue but a matter of unchangeable truth. Homosexuality is clearly a sin,” a coalition of Korean Methodists said in a statement.
More Than 2,600 Store Closings Have Been Announced So Far In 2024:
Dire Warning From Economist Jim Rickards: ‘Are They Trying to Start a Nuclear War?’
Germany Panic-Announces Migrant Deportation Plan Before Elections:
EU Elections: Big Gains for Dutch Populist Wilders, Pro-Farmer Party Wins First Seats in EU Parliament:
United Methodist Church Loses 1 Million Members in a Single Day over LGBT Affirmation: