Although this may seem to be an article focusing on Chicago, please realize Chicago is only being used as an example of the moral decay and corruption in virtually every major city in the United States. It serves as a stark warning to relocate if you are in one of these areas.
As noted by ReallyGraceful in the video above, Chicago, Illinois, ought to be “a haven of the United States.” The third largest city in the U.S., it’s filled with world-class architecture and technological advancements. It’s a center for manufacturing and transportation industries and has become a tech sector mecca.1
But rather than being the apple of America’s eye, Chicago has become known as “a center for murder, crime and corruption.” A person is shot every three hours and 41 minutes in “The Windy City.” This despite having some of the toughest gun control laws in the country.
Someone is murdered every 15 hours and 54 minutes in Chicago. According to statistics cited in the video, you’re more likely to be murdered in Chicago than die as a civilian in the Ukraine-Russia war. The violence in Chicago is primarily Black on Black, and most victims are Black men under the age of 25. How did this happen? How did Chicago become a center for crime rather than advancement?
Chicago’s Failed Policies
Lori Lightfoot, a Black gay Democrat, became mayor of Chicago in 2019. In the summer of 2020, she went along with the nationwide movement to defund the police. In August she pledged to cut the city’s police budget by $80 million, but a month later she changed her mind and in the end “only” cut the budget by $59 million.2
To her credit, she rejected the community’s call for eliminating police altogether and replacing them with social workers and medical professionals, saying she does “not support defunding the police” and could not “responsibly enact any policies that make communities less safe.”3
Clearly, Lightfoot understood the value of police presence, seeing how she made sure she had a squad of 71 police officers protecting her personal home.
That said, Lightfoot also implemented some of the most draconian lockdown policies in the country and pressured Chicagoans to get the experimental COVID jab. She also launched a universal basic income pilot program, which is yet another way to get people hooked on government assistance.
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All the while, crime surged. In December 2021, Lightfoot begged the federal government for additional law enforcement resources to address out-of-control crime rates.4
In April 2023, Lightfoot became the first Chicago mayor to lose reelection, ostensibly due to her failure to rein in crime. Remarkably, the new mayor is anything but hard on crime and is even more permissive than she was.
Contrary to Lightfoot, who at least pushed back against the irrational if not suicidal “defund the police” movement, the new mayor, Democrat Brandon Johnson, a former union organizer and Cook County commissioner, was a staunch supporter of police defunding, and to this day defends looting as “an outbreak of incredible frustration and anguish” caused by “a failed racist system.”
Meanwhile, Walmart, a major donor to the Democrat Party, is now closing four of its eight Chicago stores due to rampant theft and looting. Walmart simply can’t afford to stay there. Protesters gathered outside Walmart, criticizing its decision, but in the end, economics rule — even in Democrat-controlled areas.
Decriminalization of Crime Leads to Lawlessness
Remarkably, the Democrat trend to decriminalize theft, looting and even violent crime and murder — because “racism and inequality” — is resulting in more crime. Who could’ve guessed that lack of law abiding would lead to lawlessness?
As noted by Cook County prosecutor Jason Poje, who in early May 2023 resigned from his post that he’s held for 20 years, “This State and County have set themselves on a course to disaster.” He continues:5
“… the worst part is that the agency for whom I work has backed literally every policy change that had the predictable, and predicted, outcome of more crime and more people getting hurt.
Bond reform designed to make sure no one stays in jail while their cases are pending with no safety net to handle more criminals on the streets, shorter parole periods, lower sentences for repeat offenders, the malicious and unnecessary prosecution of law enforcement officers, overuse of diversion programs, intentionally not pursuing prosecutions for crimes lawfully on the books after being passed by our legislature and signed by a governor, all of these so-called reforms have had a direct negative impact, with consequences that will last for a generation …
The current people in charge of this state, including the [State’s Attorney’s Office] suffer from a fundamental misunderstanding … we live in a society with adversarial court and criminal justice processes.
Defense attorneys, legal aid clinics, Public Defenders, defendant advocate groups … they fight like hell to protect the rights of criminal defendants. And they should. Their work is as noble as ours. But we have an obligation to fight like hell on behalf of the People. It should go without saying that this must be done ethically and evenhandedly.
When both sides vigorously defend their positions, a balance is reached between protecting rights while preserving some sort of order and safety. Once we start doing too much of the defense’s job, once we pull our punches, once we decide that it’s worth risking citizens’ lives to have a little social experiment, that balance is lost.
The unavoidable consequences are what we are witnessing in real time, an increase in crime of all kinds, businesses and families pulling up stakes, and the bodies piling up …”
Why are political leaders implementing policies that, obviously, will result in more rather than less crime? They’re intentionally implemented because the end result is a desired one. Chicago is not alone in this folly. Seattle, Los Angeles and many other Democrat-run cities have implemented similar policies, and the end result is the same everywhere.
ReallyGraceful has a theory. She believes these insane policies are intentionally implemented because the end justifies the means since it is a desired outcome.
She suspects large brick and mortar stores and small shops alike are intentionally being pushed out of the big cities so that “only those with the money and infrastructure to support online shopping can survive.” In other words, it’s a consolidation program. The end goal is to transition to a traceable central bank digital currency and online shopping.
Beyond that, we have the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) well-laid plans for the cities of the future.6,7 They want tiny self-contained vertical cities where your every move is surveilled and countryside excursions are forbidden. To get there, they must destroy the old infrastructure and rebuild according to new specifications.
According to the WEF, cities worldwide will gain 5 billion new inhabitants by 2050.8 In all, they predict 80% of the global population will be pressed into cities. Never mind the fact that city living has long been linked to stress, depression and increased aggression.9
So-called “isobenefit urbanism” plans include building cities where essentials are all within a 1-mile walking distance.
This makes sense, considering the green goal to have all electric cars by 2050 is a fantasy that cannot be achieved. There aren’t enough minerals on this planet to replace existing gas-powered cars with EVs. The plan is simply for average people to not have a car.
Coordinated Effort to Unleash Lawlessness Across America
The key takeaway here is that the promotion of lawlessness is not restricted to Chicago. Chicago is just one example of the moral degradation that is happening in virtually every major U.S. city.
Violent criminals are released from prisons in many major cities and state prosecutors are either handing out slaps on the wrist or refusing to prosecute violent offenders altogether. That’s intentional. You don’t have to have some special Ph.D. to realize that if there’s no punishment for looting and murder, more people will loot and kill.
According to FBI data, on average, murder and manslaughter in U.S. cities with a population over 10,000 increased 26% between 2010 and 2020; rape increased by 38%, aggravated assault by 29% and car theft by 48%.
Those are averages. Some cities are far worse than others.10 To dig deeper, see CBS News’ “Murder Map,”11 the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “Homicide Mortality by State” map,12 and/or World Population Review’s “Cities with the Most Murders 2023” map.13 It’s worth noting that 18 of the 20 cities with the highest murder rates have Democrat mayors.
Save Yourself — Move Out of the Cities
My advice? If you live in a big city — any major metropolitan area — consider moving to a smaller one, preferably in a less “woke” state where lawlessness is not openly embraced and accepted as some form of “equity” arrangement.
Your and your family’s safety, security and long-term welfare may depend on it, because it’s only going to get worse from here. We can easily predict this because the degradation we’re currently seeing is clearly intentional.
10 Cities and States Homeowners Are Fleeing
Since the pandemic began, we’ve seen an unprecedented exodus from Blue cities across the U.S. The top 10 cities homeowners have been fleeing are:14
- San Francisco
- Los Angeles
- New York City
- Washington, D.C.
- Boston
- Chicago
- Detroit
- Denver
- Seattle
- Philadelphia
People are also fleeing certain states more than others. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the 10 states with the highest population loss in 2021 due to relocations were:15
- New Jersey
- Illinois
- New York
- Connecticut
- California
- Michigan
- Massachusetts
- Louisiana
- Ohio
- Nebraska
Safest Cities in America
As for where to relocate, taking a peek at crime statistics can be helpful. As of 2022, the following 10 towns and townships were rated the safest.16 Additional lists of low-crime areas can be found here17 and here.18
- Lewisboro Town, New York
- Wayland, Massachusetts
- Rye, New York
- Broadview Heights, Ohio
- Franklin, Massachusetts
- Norfolk, Massachusetts
- Sparta Township, New Jersey
- Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey
- Berkeley Heights Township, New Jersey
- Holden, Massachusetts
As for the states people are flocking to, the top 10 states that have seen the greatest influx are:19,20
- Florida
- Texas
- North Carolina
- South Carolina
- Tennessee
- Georgia
- Arizona
- Idaho
- Alabama
- Oklahoma
To Rebuild, We Must Address the Real Problems
This article hit home for me as I was born and raised in Chicago and about as native as they come as I went to kindergarten, grade school, high school, college, medical school and residency all within the city limit of Chicago. Thankfully, I left over 12 years ago and escaped to sunny Florida.
I agree with ReallyGraceful who states that what we’re seeing is the Hegelian Reaction in real-time: Problem, Reaction, Solution. They’re intentionally creating a problem that they know will result in a certain reaction, so that they can then introduce a preplanned “solution” — a solution that centralizes and cements power at the top of government.
And, while there is a political divide, there are rotten apples and Great Reset promoters on both sides. For example, some Republican leaders are now calling for the U.S. military to intervene and restore order, but that’s just part of the same agenda. The result is more government control and power. Military intervention is the last thing we should hope for.
What we really need to do, as a society, is to take a cold, hard look at the problems that government is ignoring or trying to sweep under the rug, because that’s where the solutions lie. The real problems that need to be addressed can be summed up as:
- Lack of family unit, which has eliminated the security and confidence that family used to provide.
- Lack of traditional values that benefit the individual and the collective equally.
- Lack of pride and purpose in the workplace as workers are viewed as disposable.
- Lack of community and meaningful connection with others.
- Lack of personal responsibility and sense of self.
- Failure to keep government power in check.
The only ones who can fix these problems are We the People. We have to change how we live and interact in our local communities and stop looking to the government for solutions. Government is in the business of creating problems to introduce fake solutions that centralize power. We need to identify and address the real problems, and only we can do that.
- 1 Dom and Tom Expansion of Chicago’s Tech Sector
- 2, 3 Block Club Chicago October 21, 2023
- 4 Fox 17 December 22, 2021
- 5 ZeroHedge May 11, 2023
- 6 Weforum Cities and Urbanization
- 7 Weforum Global Future Council
- 8 Weforum March 14, 2023
- 9 Open Libraries Problems of Urban Life, Crowding
- 10 Safehome.org Crime Trends
- 11 CBS News Murder Map February 23, 2022
- 12 CDC.gov Homicide Mortality by State
- 13 World Population Review Cities With the Most Murders 2023 map
- 14 Yahoo! News January 22, 2023
- 15 World Population Review States People Are Leaving
- 16 Safewise Safest Cities in the US March 30, 2022
- 17 Bob Vila 19 Places with Almost Zero Crime 2021
- 18 Kiplinger Safest Cities in 2023
- 19 TheHill.com Feb. 1, 2023
- 20 National Association of Realtors January 30, 2023
Article cross-posted from Dr. Mercola’s site.
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Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.