Farming communities all over the central part of the nation now look like war zones as a result of all this flooding, but the media elites on the east and west coasts don’t want to write about it.  And with more flooding on the way for the next two months, this crisis is only going to get worse.

This is the time of year when farmers are gearing up to plant wheat, corn and soybeans, and now a substantial portion of our farmland will not be able to be used at all this year.  According to Reuters, at least a million acres of farmland were covered by floodwaters for at least seven days this month, and that “will likely reduce corn, wheat and soy production this year”…

US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said Wednesday during a visit to El Paso that the border had hit its "breaking point" and urged Congress to come up with legislative solutions to the problem. Border Patrol officials were on pace in March for more than 100,000 apprehensions and encounters with migrants – the highest monthly tally in over a decade, he said.

Around 90 percent of those – or 90,000 – crossed the border between legal ports of entry. The vast majority of those crossing between ports of entry turn themselves into Border Patrol agents, seeking asylum. “The surge numbers are just overwhelming the entire system," McAleenan said.

Much of the mess of the past few months comes down to the fact that the government triggered Article 50 without knowing what it was trying to negotiate. The other problem that May has had is not knowing what would get through parliament: the deal was negotiated with little thought for what would pass the Commons.

In many ways, the problem is the composition of this parliament. Not only is it hung, but the balance of power is held by the DUP — which comes from the part of the UK most affected by Brexit. This is why it would not be a surprise if a new prime minister went for an election sooner rather than later. Of course, should the government collapse — with no conclusion to the current Brexit conundrum — the national mood will be very different. Politics will be even more volatile, and a general election almost certain. In such circumstances, virtually anything could happen.

May is no longer a viable leader because trust, the essential lubricant of politics, has gone. Both wings of the party feel that she has misled them at key points in this process. Ministers no longer trust her word. May has even lost the confidence of her whips’ office, a remarkable state for any prime minister. ‘When she goes that black cloud will lift,’ says one minister.

May is the fourth Tory prime minister in a row to have been undone by the European question. In truth, whoever was PM after the referendum result was likely to find their premiership consumed by the issue. Untangling 40 years of European integration was always going to be a complex and fraught task, especially given the effect that the issue has on the Tory party. But May’s misjudgments have made a difficult situation worse than it needed to be. She leaves behind an even greater set of challenges than the ones she inherited. The Tories can only hope that her successor is better equipped for the task.

This is already the worst agricultural disaster in modern American history, and the National Weather Service is telling us that there will be more catastrophic flooding throughout the middle portion of the nation for the next two months. In the short-term, food prices will not rise too dramatically because the stores are selling the food that has already been produced.  But as the months roll along, you will start to notice food prices steadily increase. 

Millions of bushels of wheat, corn and soybeans have been destroyed by the flooding so far, and thousands of farmers will not be able to plant crops at all this year.  And the livestock losses that we have already experienced will be felt for many years to come. America’s farmers have been utterly devastated. America’s cattle producers have been utterly devastated. Food production is going to be way, way below expectations, and food prices are going to escalate dramatically in the coming months.

This is the kind of scenario that I have been warning about, and this crisis is going to continue to get worse as all the snow from one of the snowiest winters on record melts. In Minnesota, there are still more than 20 inches of snow on the ground in some places, and all of that water has to go somewhere. This is the biggest national crisis that has hit the United States in many years, but the mainstream media and millions of Americans that do not live in the affected areas still do not seem to get it. Of course once food prices start getting painfully high at our supermarkets everyone will start complaining, but there will not be any easy solutions.

“There are many global risks currently overshadowing the economy,” said Matthias Heider, a lawmaker from Merkel’s CDU party and a member of the economics committee in the lower house of parliament. “If global risks accumulate further, it might be too much for growth to be sustained.”

Merkel herself has carefully avoided setting off any alarm bells, even as Brexit, China’s slowdown and US trade tensions weigh on Germany. In an address to the Bundestag last week, she told lawmakers that she foresees “times of growth” ahead, while the outlook for the European Union has become “somewhat clouded.”

Over the past decade, we have been adding to that debt at a rate of about 1.1 trillion dollars a year, and we will add more than a trillion dollars to that total once again this year. But when you add in our unfunded liabilities, our long-term financial outlook as a nation looks downright apocalyptic.

According to Boston University economics professor Laurence Kotlikoff, the US is currently facing 200 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities, and when you add that number to our 22 trillion dollar debt, you get a grand total of 222 trillion dollars. Of course we are never going to pay back all of this debt. The truth is that we are just going to keep accumulating more debt until the system completely and utterly collapses.

His comments came after Mrs May promised to quit Downing Street if Conservatives backed her Brexit deal. Her vow to resign after delivering Brexit could break the deadlock at last and set the country on course to leave the EU by May 22. MPs will be given another chance to vote for the Prime Minister’s deal on Friday, the day the UK was originally meant to leave the EU by.

Following the announcement, rivals such as Boris Johnson hinted he was ready to back the deal. Former cabinet ministers Iain Duncan Smith and Esther McVey also indicated they could follow suit. Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay insisted MPs must now back Theresa May’s divorce deal "in the national interest".

Mr Barclay said: "The results of the process this House has gone through today strengthens our view that the deal the Government has negotiated is the best option. If you believe in delivering on the referendum result by leaving the EU with a deal, then it's necessary to back the withdrawal agreement - if we do not do that, then there are no guarantees about where this process will end. It's for that reason that I call on all members from across this House in the national interest to back the Prime Minister's deal."

In an extraordinary evening in British politics, MPs did vote in favour of changing the exit date of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU from March 29.

The US is behaving like a "cowboy in the Louvre," undermining international order with its "chaotic moves and unpredictable behavior," Zakharova said. The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed on Wednesday that two of its military planes arrived in Venezuela as part of a 2001 military cooperation deal that does not require further approval by the Venezuelan National Assembly, which has been taken over by the opposition and the self-proclaimed 'interim president' Juan Guaido.

The planes carrying up to 100 Russian military specialists and cargo landed outside Caracas on Saturday, prompting wild guesses in the media.

Speaking to Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi, Kristinn Hrafnsson noted that within twenty-four hours of Hillary Clinton’s “humiliating” defeat in the 2016 election, “Russia became the entity that everything should be blamed on.” But with Robert Mueller’s special investigation ending with a collusion-less murmur, it’s difficult to imagine how journalism will ever recover from two years of Russiagate howling, Hrafnsson said.

We’ve had this frenzy in the media, an absolutely neo-McCarthyist era which is a total humiliation for journalism. Who has gained? I can tell you who has lost. Journalism in general has lost. This is an extremely dark period for mainstream media, especially in the United States and for those who cater to that market.

If manufacturers are making and sending less stuff to businesses, and if businesses are selling less stuff to their customers, then we would expect to see less stuff moved around the US by truck, rail and air. And wouldn’t you know it, the numbers also tell us that this has been happening too. The three months in a row of year-over-year declines are the first such declines since the transportation recession of 2015 and 2016.

As you can see, the elements for a “perfect storm” are definitely coming together, and I encourage everyone to get prepared for rough times ahead. But many people are not that concerned about a new crisis, because they remember that global central banks were able to pull us out of the fire last time around. Unfortunately, they may not be able to do it this time.

Just consider the words of the deputy director of the IMF… In a speech on the future of the eurozone, the IMF’s deputy director David Lipton, warned of the depleted power of central banks and governments to combat another sharp economic shock. “The bottom line is this: the tools used to confront the global financial crisis may not be available or may not be as potent next time” he said.

“I’m very confident that what was tried before failed, and I’m optimistic that what we’re doing will give us a better likelihood that we’ll achieve the outcomes that would be better for both the people of Israel and the Palestinian people as well,” Pompeo said as he testified before the House Appropriations Committee’s State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Subcommittee about his department’s 2020 budget request.

...Pompeo said the United States wanted to “broaden the debate,” when asked if a peace deal would focus as in the past on establishing borders, mutual recognition and the status of Jerusalem, Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Palestinian refugees.