BIDEN’S WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN UNDERMINES HIS OWN GLOBAL STRATEGY

Far worse than failing to intervene is intervening to fail. The withdrawal from Afghanistan is just that.

US allies who have themselves invested huge military and economic resources in Afghanistan fear a Taliban return to power and the blood-bath that would likely accompany it. Their concerns are shared by General Kenneth McKenzie, commander of US CENTCOM, responsible for Afghanistan, who told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week that Afghanistan’s forces might well collapse following US withdrawal.

Jihadists everywhere would be encouraged and empowered by a perceived US defeat at the hands of the Taliban, which was being trumpeted by Al Qaida within days of Biden’s announcement.

Biden justified his withdrawal with the need to counter challenges from China and Russia and strengthen democratic allies and partners against autocracy. His actions are likely to have the reverse effect.

The abandonment of Afghanistan will long be remembered by countries around the world as they weigh their choices between the US and authoritarian regimes. Already Saudi Arabia has recognised that Biden will not protect them from Iran . . .

Chinese President Xi Jinping says Taiwan must and will be “unified” with China, by force if necessary . . . Xi will be . . . count[ing] the potential cost of moving against the country that he considers his own.  (Richard Kemp, Gatestone, 5/2/2021)

Hillary Clinton has warned of “huge consequences” in Afghan US troop withdrawal. (BBC News, 5/3/2021)

LOOMING AFGHAN DEFEAT

Parents and wives of the men lost in the twenty-year Afghan conflict must be furious at the US withdrawal, which effectively cancels out all the progress made in the last two decades.   Other nations must be equally angry (Britain alone has lost 454 men).   One question they will have:  Is the US a reliable partner?

Al-Qaeda:  ‘The Americans are now defeated. The US war in Afghanistan played key role in hitting US economy.’   (Jihad Watch, 5/2/2021)

TALKING POINTS

• TV news companies ridicule the idea that the election was not fair and that only 30% of Republicans believe it was.  But in one respect it really was not fair.  Election coverage was one sided, with at least one survey showing that 93% of coverage favored the liberals (Democrats).   Until it gets closer to 50/50, they cannot claim fairness.  In that sense, at least, the election was rigged.

• There’s clearly a shortage of doctors in India.   This is partly because the US and the UK are attracting so many and are able to offer higher salaries.  What’s needed is to encourage more to stay in India where a pandemic has left them in a real big mess. Maybe it’s time to train enough of our own doctors.

• Antifa militants in Portland have now ramped up their terroristic efforts and have issued a direct threat to “mayor” Ted Wheeler via a video posted on Twitter, ordering him to resign or else widespread destruction and bloodshed will enrapture the city. “Ted, we are asking for the last time that you resign. If you ignore this message outright the destruction of your precious way of life is going to escalate. Blood is already on your hands, Ted. But next time, it may just be your own,” says the narrator in a video posted to the @KnotAThreat account on Twitter, while showing Wheeler’s home address in the video.   (The Patriot Nation, 5/3/2021)

• Eight people were shot dead at an Indianapolis FedEx facility.   Four were Sikhs from India.   Diversity isn’t working!

• PBS’ “The Rise of the Nazis” is a disturbing series.   It seems to be warning us of similar groups (i.e. Trump) as much as retelling the events in Germany almost ninety years ago.  What’s needed now is a series on “The Rise of Bolshevism.”   We are threatened by the Left far more than by the Right.

• The British government seems set to pay Iran 400 million pounds ($560 million) for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a dual nationality citizen married to a British man with a young daughter.   This is a dangerous precedent.  The best policy on this is that Brits should avoid those countries were state kidnapping is the norm.  UK policy could prove very expensive.

• When countries spend too much money, one of two things usually happens.   The currency will go down in value on international currency markets; or there is hyper-inflation; or both.   Mr. Biden seems to think this won’t happen.

• Really sad news from Israel.   45 people were killed in a stampede at a religious festival.   Included in the dead were two brothers, aged 14 and 9.  It was the worst peacetime disaster ever to befall the nation.

• Israel and Lebanon resume maritime border-demarcation talks. After a four-month hiatus, Lebanon and Israel will resume talks on their disputed maritime boundary. U.S. mediator John Desrocher will be present at the talks, which will take place at the U.N. base in Naqoura near the Israel-Lebanon border. Both countries are seeking to expand oil and gas exploration in the Mediterranean, giving the talks high stakes. Lebanon’s government may try to negotiate for a border line farther south than in previous rounds, a bid Israel will likely rebuff.   (Stratfor, 5/2/2021)

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LOVE FOR ENEMIES

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor^[b] and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?  And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?  Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” ( Matthew 5:43-48)

OBAMA’S THIRD TERM

 

Black Lives Matter, Antifa March Through DC, Chant ‘Burn It Down’

by Jack Phillips, February 7, 2021

Black Lives Matter protesters and Antifa agitators marched through Washington on Feb. 6 and threatened people as they ate dinner, according to video footage and reports.

“Burn it down,” the demonstrators chanted.

“We are here tonight because black lives matter,” members of the far-left group also said. “Despite black lives mattering, black people are still dying at the hands of the police paid for by our tax dollars.”

Other video footage uploaded by independent journalists on the scene showed Antifa types fighting with police officers, who were trying to keep them away from restaurants. Some, clad in all black, could be seen holding the red-and-black Antifa flag.

At one point, police in Washington were seen forming lines around outdoor diners to separate them from the demonstrators and agitators. (US News, 2/7/2021)

“About the morality and justice of the rampage of rioting in the wake of Floyd’s death, and the sole riot at the Capitol, the media are the self-anointed judges. They decide which riots are benign and which are malignant, which should receive an empathetic response, and which should end with every participant in prison.”  (Pat Buchanan, 2/9/2021)

KEYSTONE CONTROVERSY

President Biden has expressed great concern for the unemployed, even calling an unemployed woman in California.  It was good PR, but it doesn’t alter the fact that one of his first actions was to increase unemployment, by closing the Keystone pipeline.

The leader of one of the most prominent U.S. labor unions said he regretted President Biden’s move to derail the Keystone XL pipeline project on his first day in office in a new interview.

“I wish he hadn’t done that on the first day,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told journalist Jonathan Swan on “Axios on HBO.”

Labor groups have said Biden’s day-one decision to nix the Keystone pipeline eliminated 1,000 union jobs off the bat and could kill ten times more in construction jobs that were expected to be created by the project.   (FoxNews 1/8/2021)

PRIDE FLAGS TO BE FLOWN AT ALL US EMBASSIES

Secretary of State (SOS) Antony Blinken announced he will reverse an order from President Trump and put up “pride” flags at U.S. Embassies around the world. Blinken also confirmed that he plans to appoint an envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTQ persons, a position created by Barack Obama in 2015 that wasn’t filled during the Trump presidency. Biden is the first U.S. president to openly embrace a full range of homosexual rights.  (Breitbart, 2/5/2021)

STILL NO CALL

Some people are fretting that US President Joe Biden has not yet picked up the phone to call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. They worry that this may betoken a new coolness by the United States towards Israel.

To which one can only wonder: what planet are such people living on?

For Israel scarcely needs the absence of a phone call to tell it that it has a grave problem with the new occupant of the White House.

The Biden administration has resumed funding UNRWA, reopened the Palestinian mission to Washington and recommitted itself to the “two-state solution.” It has thus re-empowered the Palestinians’ agenda of demonizing and blackmailing Israel in order to destroy it, and afforded the Palestinians status while they do so.

It has also said it wants to return to the disastrous 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, brokered by former President Barack Obama, whose terms allowed the regime to obtain nuclear weapons with only a short delay while enabling money to pour in to fund its war against Israel and the west.

Although the administration is currently saying that Iran must first return to “full compliance,” the regime’s continuing breach of that deal by increasing its number of advanced centrifuges to enrich uranium suggests it believes that America will soon cave in.  (Obama’s Third Term, Melanie Philips, 2/5/2021)

NOWHERE MAN

‘The virtual inauguration of Joe Biden is a fitting culmination to a campaign which was notable for its absences; a candidate who ‘put a lid’ on his activities by noon most days; a convention without delegates, rallies without fans, press conferences without journalists, journalists without questions. The most striking absence however was that of Biden himself. There were occasional glimpses of the man who once called himself a ‘gaffe-machine’ and has a long history of angry outbursts. He was spotted last February when he humiliated a young woman, calling her a ‘lying, dog-faced pony soldier’ on national television.

In March, he told a Michigan construction worker he was ‘full of sh-t’. In May, he told radio host Charlamagne Tha God that, ‘if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black’.   As the ballot drew closer the appearances faded away, except for an occasional apparition on television, accompanied by the ghostly reflection of a teleprompter on a camera lens. If you told me Biden was a hologram, I’d believe you, tweeted one bewildered American.

So, it is fitting that the inauguration of a ghost should take place in a ghost town. Jubilant throngs of victorious Democrats lining the streets of Washington DC have been replaced by 25,000 soldiers from the National Guard.  How ironic that the party of perpetual protest, which called for the defunding of the police, now only feels safe to celebrate its ‘victory’ in the presence of the military and, even then, only after every soldier has been vetted by the FBI. Hillary Clinton’s dismissive contempt for Trump’s deplorables, prior to the 2016 election has morphed into terror of the mob.  (“Nowhere Man,” Rebecca Weisser, The Spectator (Australia), 1/23/2021)

WAR WITH CHINA NOT INEVITABLE

“No matter what strategies the two sides pursue or what events unfold, the tension between the United States and China will grow, and competition will intensify; it is inevitable. War, however, is not,” writes Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister of Australia and current president of the Asia Society, in a new essay.

As their relationship enters its most dangerous phase yet, Washington and Beijing must find ways to carry out their competition within a set of ground rules that both respect – or, Rudd warns, “the alternatives are likely to be catastrophic.”  (Foreign Affairs, 2/5/2021)

NEW SEC OF STATE FACES OBSTACLES

Antony Blinken hopes to re-establish his country as the moral leader of the West. But it is also clear he won’t make things any easier for the Europeans.

“The question is whether America’s erstwhile allies are interested in being led. During the campaign, Biden consistently acted as though Trump was just an historical aberration. But on Election Day, Trump received over 74 million votes, 11 million more than he got in 2016. And Republicans have given no indications that they plan to turn their back on him. Many Europeans are afraid that Biden could just be an interim chapter before the next populist gets voted into the White House. ” (Der Spiegel, 2/4/2021)

Biden ends support for Yemen war

Joe Biden has declared that “diplomacy is back at the centre” of US foreign policy as Washington ends all support for Saudi Arabia’s offensive operations in Yemen. “The war in Yemen must end,” said the new president in his first major foreign policy speech. The country has been devastated by a six-year war in which more than 110,000 people are believed to have died.  (The Week, 2/5/2021)

“Yet, when it comes to interfering in the affairs of other nations, how sinless, how blameless, are we Americans?” (Pat Buchanan, 2/5/2021)

“If American democracy crumbles, we will all pay the price” (Documentary on Sky News, 2/5/2021)

Pompeo on Biden declaring ‘America is back’:  ‘Back to when ISIS controlled a caliphate?’  (FoxNews.com)

FIRING OF LOU DOBBS – Fox is now behind CNN and MSNBC in the ratings.

IMPEACHMENT TRIAL – Schumer wants to prolong trial as long as possible to discredit Trump; and to take attention off Biden who has no Covid plan, no economic plan and no China plan – he still has not called Deng Xi.  (comment on Newsmax)

“It’s all about 2024.   They are scared to death of Donald Trump.”  (Newsmax 2/10/2021)

“Thousands of refugees are being allowed into the US without being tested for Covid-19.”  (Newsmax).   And, without jobs at a time of extremely high unemployment.

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EUROPE

The specter of vaccine nationalism stalked Europe as a row erupted between Britain and the European Commission over supply of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine. Because of manufacturing problems at one of its European factories, AstraZeneca has said it will deliver less to the EU than it had planned in the coming months. The commission wants some of the shortfall to be made up with vaccine allotted for Britain. That risks breaching contractual obligations. But there are threats from the EU that if AstraZeneca does not agree, then supplies to Britain of other vaccines made in Europe, in particular the Pfizer jab, may be affected.  (The Economist, 2/4/2021)

GERMAN GREEN PARTY CALLS FOR MORE SPENDING ON DEFENCE

BERLIN (Own report) – The German Green Party foundation published an appeal calling for a “substantial increase” in the German military budget and for maintaining US nuclear weapons in Germany.  “Nuclear-sharing is a core element of the strategic connection” between the USA and Germany, according to the appeal, published on the webpage of the Green Party’s Heinrich-Böll-Foundation on the occasion of US President Biden’s inauguration.   The “authors and signatories” include the chairwoman of the Green Foundation as well as a retired Bundeswehr lieutenant general, who, in 2014, as a high-ranking NATO functionary was in charge of NATO’s realignment against Russia.  The Greens, who are still reputed to be able to integrate and politically neutralize certain factions formerly involved in the peace movement, have for some time been increasingly reaching out to the Bundeswehr.  For years they have been particularly popular among those in the top income bracket.  Spearheading the defense of western hegemony in the global power struggle, the Greens have positioned themselves as adversaries of Russia and China.

EU REACTION TO EVENTS IN BURMA

Following Monday’s coup in Myanmar, the EU and the USA are considering imposing new sanctions on that country.  Already on Monday, US President Joe Biden declared that he would immediately review the reintroduction of coercive measures.  The EU announced yesterday that it will “consider all options at its disposal to ensure that democracy prevails.”  For a long time during the Cold War, the Federal Republic of Germany had cooperated closely with the Myanmar military regime for geostrategic reasons, including arms exports.  Germany, like the West as a whole, had been disengaging from the country since 1990, again seeking better relations only after China began initiating important geostrategic projects – such as the construction of a transport corridor from the Indian Ocean to southwest China to bypass the Straits of Malacca that Washington can easily block.  The West’s attempt to outmaneuver Beijing in Naypyidaw has failed.  Aung San Suu Kyi, the de-facto head of government ousted by the military yesterday, had recently intensified cooperation with China.  (German Foreign Policy, 2/3/2021)

CHINA’S NEW MASTER RACE

“U.S. intelligence shows that China has conducted human testing on members of the People’s Liberation Army in hope of developing soldiers with biologically enhanced capabilities,” wrote then Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, in a December 3 Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “China Is National Security Threat No. 1.”

All these Chinese moves are meant to obtain “biological dominance.” “There are,” as Ratcliffe noted, “no ethical boundaries to Beijing’s pursuit of power.”

The experiment evoked the eugenics program of the Third Reich to create a “master race.”  (Gordon G. Chang, Gatestone, 2/10/2021)

SOUTH AMERICA

Colombian President Iván Duque earlier this week announced that as many as 1.7 million Venezuelan migrants currently in Colombia will now be authorized to live and work legally in the country for ten years.

As humanitarian gestures by world leaders go, it’s hard to find something on this scale in recent history.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s fateful “Wir schaffen das” (We can do this) decision in 2015 allowed up to one million refugees to apply for asylum.  Duque’s move, by contrast, welcomes nearly twice that number of people to stay for at least a decade.

Bold as it is, it could also be deeply unpopular.  To refresh, Colombia has received almost a third of the roughly 5 million Venezuelans who have fled economic collapse and political chaos in their home country in recent years. That’s more than any other country, by far.

And while many Colombians were initially welcoming to their neighbors in need — in part because in the 1990s Venezuela served as a refuge for millions of Colombians fleeing violence themselves — attitudes have hardened over time.

Two thirds of Colombians now oppose Venezuelans staying in Colombia, and three quarters say the Venezuelan border should remain closed even after pandemic-related entry restrictions are lifted, according to a December survey by the Medellín-based pollster Invamer.  (Gzero Signal, 2/10/2021)

On Sunday, Ecuadorans head to the polls after what has been, by any standards, a hellish 18 months.  In October 2019, the oil-dependent Andean country of 13 million people was wracked by protests and violent clashes over a plan to cut fuel subsidies that was part of a lending lifeline from the International Monetary Fund.

Several months later COVID swept in with such fury that bodies were seen piled up in the streets of Guayaquil, Ecuador’s main industrial hub. As a result of the pandemic, the country has seen the third highest excess death rate in the world.

Then, last April, former president Rafael Correa — a devotee of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez who harnessed an oil boom to implement his own free-spending version of “21st century socialism” from 2007-2017 — was found guilty in absentia of massive graft charges, convulsing an already deeply fragmented political landscape.

Now Ecuadorans, exhausted by the pandemic and a plummeting economy, are presented with a slate of no less than 16 presidential candidates, representing a kaleidoscope of flimsy parties with thin platforms. Correa still looms large, even from exile in Europe.

Small wonder then that half of voters are still undecided, and more than a third say they will spoil their ballots or leave them blank. Apathy is running high — “What does it matter?” is the prevailing feeling, according to one prominent local observer.   (Gzero Signal, 2/5/2021)

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CHURCH ATTENDANCE DOWN 20% THRU COVID

For almost a year now, we’ve been immersed in the politics of the pandemic – an event so profound that its side effects are often ignored.  Our cover story this week looks at one of the bigger indirect casualties:  the Church of England.  A leaked document shows it expects its already-dwindling flock to be 20 per cent lower after lockdown. Rather than fight this, it is planning to close churches, sack clergy – and accelerate the decline of Anglicanism.   (Fraser Nelson, The Spectator, 2/4/2021)

NOT THE C. OF E.

Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.  (II Thess 2:3)

Letter from a church pastor overseas:

If not Covid old age is a big factor. There is no new blood, and Zoom services aren’t the same as in person services.  I’ve had no baptisms since lockdown, almost a full year.

Unless the Church can function normally, there are no new people, so natural wastage whether Covid or old age will diminish membership.  We could easily be 20% down. (Future of church, 2/5/2021)

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TO THE POINT

• RUSSIA EXPELS EU DIPLOMATS following criticism of Russia’s crackdown on demonstrators over Alexei Navalny’s arrest, Russia expelled diplomats from Germany, Sweden and Poland.  Germany responded by expelling one Russian.

• Hotel quarantine within days – The government is block-booking thousands of hotel rooms hours after it confirmed quarantine rules related to Covid variant hotspots will begin on 15 February.  Ministers say residents who return from places where new variants are prevalent will have to stay in hotel rooms for ten nights, with security accompanying them if they go outside.  Labor accused Boris Johnson of “putting lives at risk” by not acting sooner.   (The Week, 2/5/2021)

• Thunberg effigies burned in India – Effigies of the environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg have been burned in Delhi after she tweeted support for India’s protesting farmers.  Photos of Thunberg and the pop singer Rihanna, who has also voiced support for the farmers, were set alight and banners were held aloft warning that “international interference” in Indian affairs would not be tolerated. The farmers’ protests were sparked by three controversial new bills.  (The Week, 2/5/2021)

• Middle-class teens more likely to steal – The children of well-educated parents are more likely to shoplift than those with mothers and fathers who went straight into work from school, a new study has found. Overall, 7% of surveyed teens admitted to stealing from a shop. The figure rose to 9% among those whose parents were educated to degree level or higher, with just 5% of those whose parents were less well educated admitted to shoplifting.  (The Week, 2/10/2021)

• UK Probe into extremist groups – Ministers have ordered an investigation into the extreme fringes on both ends of the political spectrum, The Daily Telegraph reports.  The review will be led by Lord Walney, a former Labour MP who was appointed as the government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption.  He said that there was “not an equivalence of threat between the far-left and the far-right” in the UK, with the latter a graver threat.    (The Week, 2/7/2021)

• Imagine:  British authorities have awarded money to aid an Islamic State bride whose jihadi husband murdered innocent people, while authorities have failed to aid the victims. That is an atrocity, and one more example of how Western leaders continue to force their populations into dhimmitude.   (Jihad Watch, 2/4/2021)

A HOUSE DIVIDED

Democrat women leaders publicly legitimizing riots and unrest.

A famous travel writer once wrote that “if you live long enough in Canada, you eventually die of boredom.”    No such fate can befall anybody who lives south of the border.

In 400 years since Jamestown, the US has had three civil wars and may be on the verge of a fourth.   (The Revolutionary War, the War between the States and the Indian Wars were all civil wars.)   Meanwhile, Canada, with basically the same ethnic mix, avoided all three.   A Canadian friend of mine called a few days ago and told me that many Canadians think we’re about to have another civil war!   Many Americans say the same. This is serious. Mark 3:25 says: that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”

We have to ask ourselves why.

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“An impeachment trial of Donald Trump isn’t about removing him from the presidency – his term ends Wednesday, either way.

“It’s about preventing him from seeking the presidency again in 2024.

“Several senators, including Republicans, have noted that if they vote to convict Trump of inciting the Jan 6^th attack on Congress, they could then vote to bar him from future public office, effectively nixing another presidential campaign.”  (Lansing State Journal, 1/17/2021).

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MIDDLE EAST

IRAN WANTS SWEETER DEAL

Iran… rejoined the global financial system with full legitimacy — plus billions of dollars flowing into the treasury of the IRGC and its expanding militias across the Middle East. You would think, then, that the regime would be delighted to return to the same nuclear deal, right? Wrong. The mullahs want an even sweeter deal.

Biden already showed his cards by stating that he wants the deal. The regime now knows that Biden seems desperate for a deal, and doubtless sees this as a delectable weakness.

The ruling mullahs also most likely assume that they can extort even more concessions from a Democrat administration, particularly Biden’s, because they successfully did so in the past….  (Gatestone, 1/19/2021)

While the Western news media has us fretting over Trump supporters, it is ignoring more alarming new stories. One story the mainstream Marxist media has ignored is the discovery of a mass grave in Iraq’s Salahaddin province. The grave reportedly contained hundreds of victims, including women and children. 

Virtually all the victims were “people of color.” None will killed by so-called “White supremacists.” All were massacred by Islamic supremacists.   (Daily Ken, 1/19/2021)

Iraqi Writer Commends President Biden’s Appointment Of Muslims To Key White House Positions  (MEMRI 1/21/2021)

PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS MAINLY FROM ISLAM

“More Christians are murdered for their faith in Nigeria than in any other country.” — Open Doors, World Watch List.  (Gatestone, 1/17/2021)

The “extreme persecution” that Christians experience in 10 of the absolute 12 worst nations comes from “Islamic oppression” or is occurring in Muslim majority nations. These include:  Afghanistan (#2), Somalia (#3), Libya (#4), Pakistan (#5), Yemen (#7), Iran (#8), Nigeria (#9), Iraq (#11), and Syria (#12).  (Gatestone, 1/17/2021)

On January 13, 2021, the military commander of an Iran-backed Shi’ite militia shared a post on his Telegram channel announcing that “the advisors of the Islamic resistance” are ready to offer counsel and training to what he called “the liberation movements” within the United States.   (MEMRI, 1/17/2021)

Reversing the Muslim travel ban raises the question:  How come no Muslim country allows non-Muslim Americans to immigrate?  Maybe they are convinced the two philosophies can’t mix.   America is for freedom; Islam means submit.  They are clearly not compatible.  So why reverse the Muslim travel ban?

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Biden to end American democracy through alien amnesty

Joe Biden plans to end American democracy through providing amnesty to illegal aliens living in the USA.  Biden’s scheme will likely add 11 million new voters, nearly all of whom will align themselves with the Democratic Party. In so doing, the de facto two-party system that is the bedrock of America’s democracy will be effectively eradicated. 

A massive invasion of non-white “migrants” will likely ensue, permeating most traditionally Republican regions, making the destruction of democracy and republicanism ubiquitous. Virtually every non-white people group disproportionately supports the Democratic Party.  (Daily Ken, 1/21/2021)

US PATHWAY FOR CITIZENSHIP FOR 11 MILLION ILLEGALS

President-elect Joe Biden plans to immediately put forward legislation offering a pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants.

Four people who have been briefed on the plan say Biden plans to announce the legislation on his first day in office, according to the Associated Press.

“This really does represent a historic shift from Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda that recognizes that all of the undocumented immigrants that are currently in the United States should be placed on a path to citizenship,” Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, said about the plan, which she was briefed on.  (Washington Examiner, 1/18/2021)

CHURCHILL OUT OF FAVOR

Once again, a bust of Winston Churchill has been removed from the Oval Office as a new occupant moves in.   The bust was introduced by President Bush and removed by President Obama before being put back by President Trump.   Whatever they might have against Churchill, you’d think they would appreciate the fact that without his leadership in World War II, we would all be goose-stepping and speaking German!

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NEW EURO ARMY COMING TOGETHER

Less than seven years after British Eurosceptics were laughed at for expressing concerns about a coming European Union army, the bloc has revealed the official uniform of its new ‘standing corps,’ as the first of 10,000 recruits prepare to deploy to the field.

Frontex, the European Union’s combined border force and coastguard, revealed the new uniform in a social media post on Monday, showing off the navy uniform complete with EU-flag identification patches and military side cap. The force said:  “For the first time, the European Union has its own uniformed service – the European Border and Coast Guard standing corps.”  (Breitbart, 1/12/2021)

Germany’s defence minister has confirmed that “a united EU military is becoming a reality,” after her ally and Chancellor Angela Merkel backed Emmanuel Macron’s call for a “real European army.”

“Europe’s army is already taking shape,” Ursula von der Leyen wrote in an opinion piece for Handelsblatt, on Thursday. (Breitbart, 1/12/2021)

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US IMPOSES SANCTIONS ON GERMAN COMPANY

The United States is imposing, for the first time, concrete sanctions on a company, because of its participation in the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. In one of its last official acts, the Trump administration announced that it would impose sanctions on the Russian pipe-laying vessel Fortuna.  Whereas, Moscow has declared that it will nevertheless do everything it can to complete the pipeline that will bring Russian natural gas directly to Germany, more companies from several European countries – including the German company Bilfinger – are abandoning the Nord Stream 2 project due to threats of US sanctions. The pull-out is not without its risks, because the companies are thus demonstrating their vulnerability to blackmail from the United States – a disadvantage, for instance, on the highly attractive Chinese market. Since Russia is vigorously pursuing the expansion of the natural gas pipelines to China, the EU risks losing its privileged purchasing position. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas recently warned that there is “no need to talk of European sovereignty” if that means “bending to Washington’s will.”   (German Foreign Policy, 1/20/2021)

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NEO-NAZIS, WHITE SUPREMACISTS WANT WAR

Neo-Nazis And White Supremacists On Social Media In Lead-Up To Inauguration Day: Calls For War, Revolution, Threats To Politicians, Bombmaking Manuals; ‘Bullets Gonna Fly’; ‘The Black Flag Will Fly Above The Dome,’ ‘CIVIL WAR WILL START.’ (MEMRI 1/15/2021)

Founder And Former Leader Of U.S. White Supremacist Organization, Now Living In Russia, In Russian TV Interview:  I Established My Organization To Create A Network Of Support During A Civil Unrest Crisis; Hitler Was The Result Of Past Circumstances And Has Nothing To Do With Us; I Feel Like A Political Dissident; We Use Social Media To Recruit (MEMRI 1/8/2021)

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TO THE POINT

• Amazon workers have seen their pay increase by $.099-an-hour during the pandemic, while Bezos’s hourly pay increased by $11.7m.  (The Guardian, 1/15/2021)

• Armed insurrection:  Congress votes to overturn the next election (Washington Times headline, 1/15/2021)

• “There is no randomized evidence to show that mask mandates would work to slow the spread of the disease.   In fact, for influenza, the randomized studies that have been done suggest that they don’t work to slow the spread of the disease.”   (Epoch Times, 12/16/2021).

• Every evening, Governor Andrew Cuomo sends out an e-mail blast blaming the vaccine chaos in New York on inadequate supply from the federal government. It is a lie. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show New York is delivering only 37% of its vaccine supply they already have into people’s arms.  (Gatestone, 1/18/2021)

• Vaccines could see Covid spike — Government scientists have warned that people could become less aware of sticking to Covid-19 rules as more of the population is vaccinated, leading to spike in cases that outweighs the gains being made by the jab rollout. Minutes from a Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) meeting say “there is a risk that changes in behaviour could offset the benefits of vaccination, particularly in the early months of vaccine rollout.”  (The Week, 1/19/2021)

• Biden to keep UK travel ban — Joe Biden’s spokesperson has said the US will maintain travel bans on the UK, much of the EU and Brazil despite an order from outgoing President Donald Trump to lift them.  Although the White House said yesterday that the ban on entry would end on 26 January, six days after Biden takes office, Jen Psaki said on Twitter that “with the pandemic worsening… this is not the time to be lifting restrictions on international travel.”  (The Week, 1/19/2021)

• Johnson ‘glad Trump is going’ — The former head of the civil service says Boris Johnson will be glad Donald Trump has not been re-elected for a second term as US president.  Lord Sedwill said those who believed Johnson would have preferred Trump to win again were “mistaken.”  In 2015, while serving as mayor of London, Johnson accused Trump of “stupefying ignorance” over his comments about violence in the city. However, the pair became unlikely allies during Trump’s term in the White House.  (The Week, 1/19/2021)

• COVID IN UK:  One in four young people say they are unable to cope with life, according to polling conducted for The Prince’s Trust.  Half of 16- to 25-year-olds said their mental health has got worse during the pandemic.    (The Spectator, 1/1/2021)

• Biden reverses Trump policies — Joe Biden has kicked off his presidency by signing a raft of executive orders, undoing many of Donald Trump’s key policies. Biden signed 15 orders, firstly to boost the federal response to the coronavirus crisis. Other orders halted the travel ban from Muslim-majority countries, ended funding for a wall on the US-Mexico border and saw the US rejoin the Paris climate agreement. Taking his place behind the Resolute desk, Biden said: “There’s no time to start like today.” (The Week, 1/21/2021)

• UK Shop staff face anger over masks — Supermarket workers are facing “abuse, threats and violence” from customers angry over a new crackdown on face coverings and social distancing rules, the boss of Co-op Food has said. Following a 140% surge in criminal activity at the Co-op over the past year, Jo Whitfield said: “Shop workers… have been spat at and threatened just because they’ve asked customers to respect social distancing.”  (The Week, 1/21/2021)

• China sanctions Trump team — China has announced sanctions on dozens of people close to Trump, including outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. In a move taken minutes after President Biden was sworn into office on the steps of the Capitol, Beijing ushered in the measures to prevent the individuals and their families from entering mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, or doing any business with China. It comes just a day after the US State Department accused China of committing genocide against its minority Uighur population.   (The Week, 1/21/2021)

• “On inauguration night, Antifa mobs attacked the Democratic Party headquarters in Portland and torched American flags in Seattle, the same kind of left-wing mobs that gave us a long hot summer of rioting, looting and arson… Has Biden ever condemned by name these mobs the way he did the mob that invaded the Capitol on Jan. 6?”  (Pat Buchanan, 1/22/2021)

BAD DAY FOR AMERICA

There’s too much simplistic reasoning following the demonstration in DC and subsequent riot in the Capitol yesterday.

Most media outlets blamed the riot on one man:  Donald Trump.    Yet, we’ve had on-going riots for months in many cities around the US.    Portland, Miami, Seattle, Los Angeles, New York City to name a few.   In Portland in August, a right-winger was shot dead by somebody on the opposing side. 

Most of these riots have involved organizations like Antifa and Black Lives Matter.    Noticeably absent was any condemnation by Democrats.  
This is very much a case of “those who live by the sword, shall die by the sword” (Matt 26:52).   Until ALL violence is condemned by ALL politicians (and ALL media), this will not end.  Even if that happens, the causes behind the riots will still be there.   Joe Biden’s legislative priorities are only likely to inspire more violence.

As for yesterday’s events, why wasn’t security more effective at the Capitol?    Police removed the barricades to let people in and some even had selfies taken with the demonstrators.   If security had been better, it’s likely that none of the four deaths would have happened.  As Liz Harrington, a reporter for NewsMax, said this morning: “This is one of the most secure buildings on the planet.”   What went wrong?

And let’s not exaggerate what happened.   The crowd was estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands; the number who actually got into the Capitol was variously estimated to be between 500-1,000.   Most demonstrators were peaceful and well-behaved. And they all vacated the streets when Trump asked them to do so.

The Capitol has seen violence before.   In the twenty years leading up to the Civil War, there were 70 violent incidents in the Capitol itself.  There needs to be a much greater effort all around to avoid another Civil War!
As has often been said in the last few hours, this was a bad day for America.   But it has come after a year of bad days.

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A COMING CRASH OF CURRENCIES

With countries throwing money around like an alcoholic in a casino, how long is it going to be before our countries go broke?   Actually, they already are!  But the day is coming when other nations will not accept dollars (or pounds) as payment for goods.   When that happens, international trade will grind to a halt.  Governments know no restraint.   $500 million for gender studies in Pakistan?   Paid for by the US taxpayer.    It’s insane.  Especially at this time.

We could also have extremely high rates of inflation, making the money in our pockets worthless.

Apart from historical accounts of the perils of high inflation (such as Germany in 1923), the best words on the subject are found in the biblical Book of Haggai 1:6, NIV:  “You have planted much, but harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.”    Inflation is certainly like having a purse with holes in it.

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SAD STATE OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Our public library remains closed.

I can remember a time when all you needed to check out a book was a library card.   That was it.  With your card you could take home anything and keep it for three weeks.  Now you need a card that’s electronically friendly, or you must memorize the last six digits of the number on the back.   My wife and daughter cannot check out items I’ve requested because of some law passed years ago.   And now books have to be held for a week in “quarantine.”   When they give you your books in the parking lot you must have a rear window open so they can throw them in, in a white plastic bag.  All this for $200 every six months in my property taxes (I could buy ten books for that amount of money!)   It seems awfully cloak and dagger and has taken the joy out of going to the library.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE

Apparently, 90 gendarmes in France are employed (and paid for) by the British tax-payer to try and keep out the tens of thousands of migrants trying to get into the UK.

Following the recent Brexit deal, France is to employ an additional 700 officials to process all the paperwork the new deal is causing.

There was less paperwork before the EU.  So why is there more now the UK has left?    Perhaps the ports are run by the libraries!

POST BREXIT DEAL

The British signed a new trade deal with the EU just a few days before the deadline of New Years Eve.   It leaves Northern Ireland (a province of the UK) under partial EU control.   Gibraltar is to be a member of the Schengen travel area, again tying them somewhat to the EU.   Fisheries was another major area of compromise.   My hometown of Grimsby on the east coast is unlikely to see a return to pre-EEC conditions.   Back then, it was the greatest fishing port in the world.

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PLEASE TELL ME WHY

In the rest of the world, left-of-centre political parties are depicted by a red color.   Conservative parties are blue.  In the US, it’s the opposite.  Can anybody tell me why?

In most countries Conservative parties are against guns and for gun control.  In the US, it’s definitely the other way around.  Can anybody tell me why?   (Following a massacre in New Zealand, a leftist party passed strict gun controls.   But that’s the only exception to the rule.)

Why does America put the month first before the day and year on forms?  All airports in America are required to fill out forms that follow the international practice of day, month and year.   Why is it different on domestic forms?

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From the Lansing State Journal

“More murders in 2020, and far more shootings,” (Lansing State Journal, 12/31/20).  

“Non-fatal shootings in Lansing nearly doubled in 2020 and homicides are at a three-decade high from surging violent crime in the second half of the year.  

Lansing Police Chief Daryl Green said many aggravated assaults and shootings have stemmed from minor disagreements.  When the fight escalates, those involved may turn to their guns.  And the more aggravated assaults that occur, the greater the chance there is for a homicide,” Green said.  “A lot of people are hurting . . .   A lot don’t know how to actually mitigate and lessen disagreement.  The conflict mediation portion of things is really an area we probably need to explore to move forward.”

“Starting January 20, the Biden administration will be responsible for  addressing three major public health crisis:   the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 330,000 Americans and infected more than 17 million;  the mental health crisis, which the pandemic has exacerbated to the point that 40% of US residents now report struggling  with mental or behavioral health issues; and the drug overdose crisis, with 81,000 deaths in the 12 months ending in May 2020, the highest ever recorded in a year-long period.   As President-elect Joe Biden knows, addiction is a mental health disorder characterized by recurring substance use, feelings of social isolation, hopelessness and obsessive thinking.”  (Lansing State Journal, 1/3/21) 

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Indigenous people across the US want their land back – and the movement is gaining momentum
by Harmeet Kaur, CNN, Updated 1845 GMT (0245 HKT) Nov 25, 2020

Around this time every year, Americans come together to share a feast commemorating a myth about its first inhabitants.  An indigenous tribe did eat with the Pilgrims in 1621 and sign a treaty with the colonists that had settled on their shores – an act of survival rather than one of goodwill and friendship.  But the relationship would eventually break down, decimating the tribe’s population and whittling away its land.

Nearly 400 years later, the descendants of the very tribe at the heart of the Thanksgiving holiday are still fighting to reclaim their lands – a fight that ironically hinges on whether or not the tribe meets the federal government’s definition of “Indian.”

“We’re kind of stereotyped as the tribes that met the Pilgrims and that’s our whole history, like we ceased to exist in 1621,” said Robert Maxim, a citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe.  “That couldn’t be further from the truth.”

(https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/25/us/indigenous-people-reclaiming-their-lands-trnd/index.html)

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Neo-Nazis And White Supremacists Mark Christmas By Freely Posting On Telegram, VK, And Parler:  Promoting Violence, ‘Dreaming Of A White Christmas,’ And Wishing Jews ‘Happy Holocaust’

Panelist At A Heated Wife-Beating Debate On Lebanese TV:  I Want My Husband To Beat Me; Other Guest:  If My Wife Refuses Me, I Will Rape Her, Douse Her In Gasoline, Light Her On Fire  (MEMRI 12/2/2020)

WHERE’S THE OUTCRY?

An Islamic hate group massacred 25 farmers in the village of Tingwe, Congo. Some of the victims were found beheaded.  The attack occurred New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2020. 

There were over 10,000 people of color killed by Islamic hate groups in 2020  (Daily Kenn, 1/3/2021)         

Two children were burned alive and another decapitated when a minibus carrying about 20 passengers was attacked by an Islamic hate group in Mozambique.  Witnesses said a man was decapitated in front of his wife and children during the attack.  

Mozambique is a nation in Africa located east of Zimbabwe and Zambia. 

The attack occurred January 2, 2021.  In 2020 there were over 10,000 people of color killed by Islamic hate groups.  (Daily Kenn, 1/3/2021)

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GERMANY-RUSSIA PIPELINE

“We continue to call on Russia to cease using its energy resources for coercive purposes. Russia uses its energy export pipelines to create national and regional dependencies on Russian energy supplies, leveraging these dependencies to expand its political, economic, and military influence, weaken European security, and undermine U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. These pipelines also reduce European energy diversification, and hence weaken European energy security. — U.S. Department of State, “Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act,” October 20, 2020. (Gatestone, 12/28/2020)

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COVID

New Covid strain ‘may resist vaccines’

Scientists in South Africa have warned that there is a “reasonable concern” that the country’s new Covid-19 variant might prove more resistant to the vaccines currently being rolled out in the UK.  Professor Shabir Madhi, who has led trials for the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, told the BBC the development makes the need for a global rollout of vaccines “even more critical.” (The Week, 1/5/2021)

How Israel is winning the vaccine race

As countries worldwide scramble to secure doses of the Pfizer and Oxford vaccines, Israel has taken a commanding lead in the race to protect its population from Covid-19.

More than a million Israelis have already been inoculated – a vaccination rate of 12.59 per 100 people, according to latest data from the University of Oxford. The Persian Gulf island nation of Bahrain is in second place with 3.57, with the UK in third on 1.39.  (The Week, 1/4/2021)

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IMPERIAL REDUX

“Among some contemporary Israelis, the British Mandate has come to be viewed nostalgically.  Although Palestine did not have the elephants, maharajahs and tigers of the Indian Raj, the same culture of Highland reels, polo and pink gins in the King David Hotel flourished.  So did an incorruptible civil service, possibly a novelty in the region.” (‘Blood and Rage,” by Michael Burleigh, 2009, page 89.)

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“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”  (Abraham Lincoln)

“It takes a PhD in Economics not to be able to understand the obvious.”  (Kristol/ Crystal)

Mr. Blippi is a character on YouTube.   He’s quite famous, especially amongst children.   He entertains children while educating them and does a commendable job.    He’s made $40 million out of his venture.   You, too, can be rich if you dress like a dork and act like an idiot!  (Check him out.)

I looked up a small community in Michigan recently.  Under “Area attractions” the only place listed was the local Methodist church.  Sadly, they spelt Methodist wrong (Methoidist.)    The local bar is welcoming and friendly.   But you may want to give the “town” a miss.

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TO THE POINT

• England and Scotland back in lockdown – Boris Johnson has warned the coming weeks will be the “hardest yet” of the Covid-19 pandemic as he last night announced a third lockdown. The prime minister acted after modelling put the UK on course to exceed 100,000 Covid-related deaths before the end of the month without urgent action. People in all of England and most of Scotland must now stay at home except for a handful of permitted reasons.  (The Week, 1/5)

• Female drivers join Moscow Metro – Trains on Moscow’s Metro subway system can now be driven by women, after a decades-long ban on female drivers was overturned. The first of a new generation of female drivers started work on Monday after Russia’s Ministry of Labour ordered that women be allowed to drive trains on the network. A ban on hiring new female drivers was introduced in the early 1980s.  (The Week, 1/5/2021)

• South Korean birth rate sinks – There have been calls for action to revive South Korea’s falling fertility rate after the nation recorded more deaths than births in 2020. There were only 275,815 births, a record low, compared to 307,764 deaths, a 3.1% increase in fatalities compared to the previous year. This is the first time South Korea has reached the “population death cross”, the name given to the point at which the number of deaths surpasses births.   (The Week, 1/5/2021)

• Is Trump headed for Scotland?  Donald Trump could be planning to visit Scotland during Joe Biden’s inauguration ceremony. Sources at an airport in Prestwick, near the Trump-owned Turnberry golf resort, say a US military plane is scheduled to arrive on 19 January, and that the aircraft – a Boeing 757 – had been used by the US president on past trips. President-elect Biden is due to be sworn-in as America’s 46th president on 20 January.  (The Week, 1/5/2021)

• Watching Sky News on the coronavirus in the UK, it’s hard to believe that the last time we all lived through a universal pandemic, the UK was the greatest country in the world, ruling a third of the world’s population.   Not only did they get through it, they helped all their colonies get through it.   Additionally, they ruled all of them, making the day-to-day decisions that every country needs.   Now they are having difficulty just taking care of themselves!

DICTATORIAL POWERS TAKEN BY GOVERNMENTS

Daniel Andrews giving an update on Victoria’s lockdown. Covid-19 restrictions in his state remain the country’s tightest Photograph: James Ross/AAP

COVID-19 – VICTORIA PREMIER ACCUSED OF GRABBING DICTATORIAL POWERS

‘It’s diabolical, he’s a megalomaniac’: Dan Andrews is accused of ‘grabbing dictatorial power’ as he tries to extend Victoria’s state of emergency by a YEAR in a move that ‘will kill Melbourne’.  (Daily Mail 8/24/2020)

“One of the greatest blessings of living in a Commonwealth country — former British colonies like Canada, Australia and New Zealand — is our inheritance of the rule of law, neutral courts, policing with the consent of the community, and freedom of the press.”   (Avi Yemini, Rebel News, 9/13/2020)

NEW RESTRICTIONS IN UK

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said “we must act” to avoid another lockdown as virus cases rise in England.  He set out a new “rule of six,” restricting gatherings to a maximum of six people, enforced by police able to issue fines or make arrests.

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Drastic measures to curb alarming rise in Coronavirus cases  (Euronews, 9/9/2020)

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New York City’s Day of Reckoning Is at Hand

“Despite New York’s success in containing the coronavirus, unprecedented numbers of New Yorkers are unemployed, facing homelessness, or otherwise at risk,” they noted in a letter to Mayor Bill de Blasio.  “There is widespread anxiety over public safety, cleanliness and other quality of life issues that are contributing to deteriorating conditions in commercial districts and neighborhoods across the five boroughs.”    (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/york-city-day-reckoning-hand-103054768.html)

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SOUTH AFRICA:   Steep slump in GDP as COVID-19 takes its toll on the economy  (Official Govt stats)

The punch in the gut was severe.  Perhaps the second quarter of 2020 will become known as the pandemic quarter.  South Africa’s economy suffered a significant contraction during April, May and June, when the country operated under widespread lockdown restrictions in response to COVID-19.

Gross domestic product (GDP) fell by just over 16% between the first and second quarters of 2020, giving an annualized growth rate of ‑51%.  (SA Government, 9/9/2020)

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GERMANY — GERMANY HAUNTED BY COLONIAL PAST

Today, 120 years ago, in the small city of Liangxiang, German troops committed the most savage massacre in the colonial war in China. Under the pretext of fighting insurgents, soldiers from two battalions of marine infantry opened fire on residential areas in the small city of Liangxiang southwest of Beijing and, after conquering the town, summarily executed all its male residents.  The number of inhabitants was estimated at between 3,000 and 4,000.  The Liangxiang massacre was followed by many more in the course of suppressing the “Boxer Rebellion.”   In Berlin’s opinion, the norms of the laws of war apply only to “civilized” nations, since China and its population were not considered as such, they were not binding in the German colonial war.  The German troops’ murder-by-arson in China bears clear resemblance to the German Empire’s colonial warfare in Africa.  In view of Berlin’s new “Indo-Pacific” offensive, german-foreign-policy.com reminds of Germany’s murderous colonial past at the Pacific.   (German Foreign Policy, 9/13/2020)

Germany Calling Shots in Europe and Merkel Isn’t Sorry…

“Everybody has been asking Germany to spend more and now Germany is spending,” Vestager said at an event in Berlin Sept. 7.  “So I think we should make the best of it.”  It’s a telling example of how Germany has become far more explicit, and unapologetic about calling the shots in Europe.  It’s on display in its tightening of foreign-investment rules, its efforts to coordinate the response to an increasingly powerful China, and its willingness to challenge Russia over the poisoning of opposition leader Alexey Navalny.  “The EU has to define its own interests, has to be strong and independent — from both China and the U.S.,” Le Maire told a German newspaper in comments published Sunday.  “This is crucial to be successful in the 21st century.”   The next plank of their strategy is to target the competition rules, the touchstone of the single market. The Germans aim to make progress toward bringing down the barriers to would-be European champions by the beginning of next year.    (Unaccredited news item sent to me.) 

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CIA:  Iran seeks to assassinate US Ambassador to South Africa – report — An assassination of a US ambassador could undermine Trump in his re-election campaign or pull him into a new standoff.  (Jerusalem Post, 14 Sept 2020)

Citing multiple US intelligence sources and a CIA global threats document, the report said it would be the Islamic Republic’s preferred method of retaliating against US President Donald Trump’s assassination of Revolutionary Guards commander Qasem Soleimani in January.

Politico said that US officials have been aware of a general threat against Ambassador Lana Marks (66) since the spring but it added that details had become more specific in recent weeks, noting that the Iranian embassy in Pretoria was involved, although Tehran was also considering other options for retaliation.

Iran has operated clandestine networks in South Africa for decades and Al Jazeera and The Guardian reported on them in 2015.

(https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/cia-iran-seeks-to-assassinate-us-ambassador-to-south-africa-report-642195)

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POST-BREXIT TRADE DEALS

The former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, has been asked to help Britain in seeking new international trade deals, based on his experience in doing the same for Australia.   Here are two Australian letters supporting Mr Abbott.  The second letter reflects growing support for a revival of British Commonwealth trade ties, torn up when Britain joined the European project.

Abbott will be a wonderful addition to the UK team.  He’s always been a good friend of the UK, was not a ‘failed’ PM at all, has a great respect for traditional values, knows what he’s talking about and will get the job done.”  (Politico.com)  (Hugh Eveleigh, 9/10/2020)

People obviously don’t understand how Australia will benefit from having a cutting edge trade operative like Abbott secure great free trade deals for Britain.  Firstly, we have now learned that China is no longer a reliable trading partner so we need to find alternate markets in a hurry.  One of the biggest prospective markets for Australia would be from a re-vamped British Commonwealth free trade zone, (especially including growing India) which Abbott could build, and he would assumedly help facilitate a great individual FTA with Britain to both countries benefit.  Covid has really hurt working families in Australia, and we need all the help that we can get recovery wise.  Woke type objectors to Abbott’s appointment mainly derive their incomes from social security, or else soft low or nonproductive type government jobs, (i.e. the ABC) funded by the sweat of the Australian worker.   If they want their privileged lifestyles to continue to be funded, then they must accept that the money has to be earned somewhere.  Their clear choice is not to oppose productivity and remain funded, or to oppose the capitalist system and enter poverty, as there’d then be no money left to support them.

We live in a democracy, most people want to be able to live decently and support their families, and no minority has a right to take their living standards away from them.  (Nick Bury, 9/9/2020)

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HANDEL HAD (ANONYMOUS) HELP WITH THE MESSIAH

Without Handel’s Messiah we would not know who Charles Jennens was.  And without Charles Jennens we would not have Handel’s Messiah.  You see, it was Jennens who put together the text upon which the music is based.

Charles Jennens (1700-1773) was a wealthy English landowner, an amateur musician and an avid supporter of the arts.  In fact, when he was 70 years old he began an arduous task of writing extensive critical editions of Shakespeare’s plays complete with editorial footnotes.  This type of annotated edition had never been done before with Shakespeare.  He completed five of them before he died.

But it was his friendship with George Handel where Jennens made his mark.  He helped fund nearly every one of Handel’s compositions (operas and oratorios) beginning in 1725 until Handel’s death in 1759.   Their friendship is well documented through their letters and it is known that Handel visited Jennens’ estate many times.  In a video, Jennens is described as a “Handel nut.”   He owned the largest single collection of the works of Handel in the world.

One thing Jennens liked to do was create librettos to be later set to music.  The definition of a libretto is “the text or words of an opera or similar extended musical composition.”  In other words, he wrote lyrics and asked Handel to write the music.  The first one he did with Handel was the oratorio Saul first performed in 1735 to great success.

This led to other collaborations but none as famous as Messiah. Apparently Jennens’ libretto had been in Handel’s possession for a few years but other projects, including another collaboration with Jennens took precedence.  But in 1741 Jennens would convince Handel to begin work on this special libretto.  In July of that year Jennens wrote to a friend saying, “Handel says he will do nothing next Winter, but I hope I shall persuade him to set another Scripture Collection I have made for him, and perform it for his own Benefit in Passion Week.  I hope he will lay out his whole genius and skill upon it, that the composition may excel all his former compositions, as the subject excels every other subject. The subject is Messiah.”

The next month George Handel began writing the music for the oratorio in what has been described as a “white heat.”   The first 100 pages were done in six days and the complete oratorio (250+ pages) in only 23 days.  He then set about preparing it to be debuted in Dublin, Ireland in April 1742.

Some may argue that Charles Jennens didn’t really write anything because the entire text is from scripture, so he technically wasn’t the “author.”   But he did arrange the various texts in the order we now hear them performed.  He drew from the King James Bible and also from the Book of Common Prayer for the text.  This is not a light task nor one to be summarily dismissed as uncreative.  In fact, he pulled verses from 14 different books of the Bible, as diverse as Job and Revelation.  Forty-three verses from the Old Testament and thirty from the New Testament.  Technically you could say that Jennens compiled and Handel composed.

To top it off, Jennens gave his work to Handel freely without compensation and desired anonymity . . . that the author of the libretto be anonymous in all of their collaborations.   (Steve Laube, 12/8/14)

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BREAKDOWN OF FAMILY LIFE RESPONSIBLE

“Our families have fallen to pieces: 75% of all black children are born out of wedlock, without a father.   I don’t care how many social programs you have.   You’re not going to overcome that.   That’s where we, as black Americans, have to begin to take our fate back into our own hands and move it — stop crying racism.”  – Shelby Steele, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution.  (Shelby Steele is an African-American and author of “White Guilt.”)   9/15/2020

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PORTLAND FIRES DUE TO ARSON

And now local Portland media is reporting that a 45-year old man has been arrested for starting at least seven brush fires near a major highway:   “A man arrested Sunday afternoon for allegedly starting a small brush fire along Interstate 205 was arrested again hours after he was released from jail after he allegedly started six more small fires,” according to a Portland Police statement.

So, a single individual responsible for no less than seven brush fires – six of which he reportedly started after already being arrested and released … but somehow the media is demanding that the public consider it inconceivable that Antifa could be engaged in a campaign of arson in many of these fires.

The suspect, identified as Domingo Lopez Jr., reportedly had a molotov with him upon the second arrest.  (Americantruthtoday 9/14/2020)

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TRUMP BROKERS END TO SERBIA-KOSOVO CONFLICT

As a demonstration of good faith from the two parties toward the U.S., Serbia and Kosovo also committed Friday to cooperate with certain key U.S. policy priorities in the region.  Both parties pledged to protect and promote freedom of religion, including renewed interfaith communication, protection of religious sites, and continued restitution of Holocaust-era heirless and unclaimed Jewish property.   Both agreed to designate Hezbollah in its entirety as a terrorist organization and fully implement measures to restrict Hezbollah’s operations and financial activities in their jurisdictions. Both agreed to work with the U.S. government to decriminalize homosexuality in the 69 countries where it is currently illegal.  And, perhaps most importantly of all, Serbia has pledged to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, while Kosovo has agreed to mutual recognition with Israel.

Following on the heels of the Aug. 13 peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Friday’s agreement between Kosovo and Serbia to take steps toward economic normalization and an eventual peaceful coexistence demonstrates the achievements of President Trump and his administration’s sound engagement throughout the world.  When the U.S. government prioritizes diplomacy over force, and understanding over threats, the world stands to benefit.   (The Hill, 9/04/2020)

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EMOTION DOMINATING THINKING

One of the many paradoxes about our frightening culture wars is that western society, which constantly congratulates itself on being the acme of rationality and freedom, has in fact abandoned reason for emotion and freedom for coercion.

We can see this on display all around us.  It’s in the baleful grip of identity politics, based on the dogma that people’s feelings trump objective truth.  It’s in the witch-hunts against ideas or opinions which dissent from approved left-wing positions.  It’s in the widespread following for loopy conspiracy theories, whether against the Jews or politicians said to be inflating the dangers of Covid-19 purely to seize control of people’s lives.

It’s in the widespread support for Black Lives Matter as an “anti-racist” cause, whereas it is in fact an anti-white, anti-west revolutionary movement.  It’s in the widespread support for Extinction Rebellion as a campaign to “save the planet” from man-made global warming, whereas in fact there’s no reputable scientific evidence that anything is happening to the climate that diverges from warming and cooling patterns over the millennia while Extinction Rebellion is an anti-west, anti-capitalist revolutionary movement.   And so on, and so on.   (“Right but repulsive, or wrong but romantic?” Melanie Phillips, 9/15/2020)

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WHITE LIVES DON’T MATTER

“They say that what is right is wrong and what is wrong is right; that black is white and white is black; bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.”  (Isa 5:20)

Thanks to the UK’s liberal immigration laws, white lives are being lost.   Jacob Billington, aged 23, is the latest victim.    Meanwhile, the trial just ended of a man partially responsible for the Manchester bombing which resulted in the deaths of 22 white people.  The perpetrators were Muslims.  No attempt is being made to change the immigration laws which have led to ethnic tensions throughout the UK.

Jacob Billington, 23, was fatally stabbed in Birmingham, England on September 6, 2020.

The victim bears a resemblance to
actor Jim Cashman noted for
Progressive Insurance commercials.

Billington was one of eight victims of a stabbing spree that occurred in the early morning and lasted for about two hours.  The other seven victims survived.  Accused of murder and attempted murder is Zephaniah McLeod, 27.

“Three people arrested on suspicion of assisting the suspect were released earlier on Tuesday pending investigation,” according to skynews.com.

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IMPERIAL REDUX

“His descendants will become a multitude of nations”  (Genesis 48:19).

“Even before the Football Association was established in England in 1863, wherever the Brits went in the world the beautiful game went with them.  British railway engineers took the sport to Argentina; Scottish textile workers taught the Swedes; the Russians learned it from English cotton-mill managers.  And one day George Scott strode on to the bumpy grass field next to St John’s College with his curious students, punted a football through a blue afternoon sky, and the Burmese game was born.

“The first organized football match ever played in Burma took place at St. John’s College around 1879.”  (The Trouser People, Andrew Marshall, 2002).

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TO THE POINT

• Yoshihide Suga is one step closer to becoming Japan’s next prime minister after being elected president of the country’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Monday.  Suga, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s chief Cabinet secretary, said he wants to create a government that people can trust and vowed to push ahead with Abe’s economic policies, according to Nikkei Asian Review.  He is almost certain to be elected on Wednesday in both houses of parliament, in which the ruling coalition holds majorities.  (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/yoshihide-suga-on-path-to-become-next-prime-minister-of-japan/ar-BB191KTQ)
• BATTLE OF BRITAIN REMEMBERED 80 YEARS LATER: Tomorrow [15 Sept 2020] is Battle of Britain Day, marking 80 years since the most intense 24 hours of that critical conflict.
• MENTAL HEALTH VIOLENT DEATHS – According to data compiled and regularly updated by the Washington Post, 1,254 people with a mental illness have been shot dead by US police since the beginning of 2015.  This represents 22% of all people shot and killed by police across the country over that period.   (“Autistic teenager in Utah shot by police,” BBC News, 9/9/2020)
• TRANSEXUAL SATANIST ANARCHIST WINS PRIMARY FOR SHERIFF IN NH  – Aria DiMezzo is a self-described transexual, satanist, and anarchist Libertarian.  She ran for Sheriff of Cheshire County in the primary on the platform “F*** the Police.”  She claims the system is totally broken … and since she won the primary nomination for Sheriff, she is correct. She says people whose IQ is lower than a rock voted for her.  She also describes herself as a “She/Male.”  (Faye Higbee 9/12/2020)

 

 

AMERICA CHANGING HANDS

A protester carries an Antifascist Action flag at a rally following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody, in Boston, Massachusetts, US, May 31, 2020. (Reuters)

The Lessons of History

Empires rise and empires fall.  They usually don’t end with a bang. They end with a whimper.  Revolts become revolutions when those sent by the authorities to put them down instead join the revolt. Is that what we’re beginning to see as police and National Guard troops kneel in submission before BLM and ANTIFA?  Many who railed against those who kneeled for the playing of our national anthem now kneel before those who showed their contempt for America.  Are the reins of power about to slip from the limp hands of the descendants of the Minutemen, the Grand Army of the Republic, and all the heroes who won the wars and enforced the peace?  Are the cultural, financial, social, and political structures we’ve known all our lives about to be upended?   (Dr. Robert R. Owens, Canada free press, 7/5/2020)

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FRANCE AND GERMANY DIFFER

Serious conflicts between Berlin and Paris over foreign policy overshadow the beginning of the German EU Presidency.   French President Emmanuel Macron’s ongoing endeavors to cooperate more closely with Russia are being met with resentment in the German capital.  During a recent two-hour long video conference with his Russian counterpart. he agreed to soon visit Moscow.  In fact, the German government lays claim to leadership in determining the EU’s policy toward Russia.  There is also the conflict between France and Turkey, which had considerably escalated after a Turkish naval vessel carried out radar targeting of a French frigate in June. Paris therefore withdrew from a NATO operation and is demanding tougher EU sanctions being imposed on Ankara.  This runs counter to Berlin’s intention to seek the kind of cooperation with Turkey that can safeguard the refugee pact and serve its own geostrategic interests.  The dispute could escalate next week when the EU foreign ministers meet.  (German Foreign Policy, 7/6/2020)

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ILHAN OMAR CALLS FOR DISMANTLING US

In the most recent brazen ideological attack on the country that took her in from a war zone, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar called for the “dismantling” of the U.S. economic and political system.

Those who feared the Islamist threat to undermine the United States would come via “creeping sharia” can put that worry to rest. The threat is coming from a Marxist alliance, which includes the Far Left and its social justice rage mob paired with movements attaching itself to the George Floyd murder.

Of course, this political millieu is giving Islamists fertile ground to further destabilize and sow chaos in the American landscape.

In a press conference yesterday called by the Minnesota People of Color and Indigenous caucus, Omar said that the push for change can’t stop with criminal justice or policing reform.  “We are fighting to tear down systems of oppression that exist in housing, in education, in health care, in employment, in the air we breathe,” said Omar.

It’s a nod to dismantling the American system of government — the same government that gave Omar shelter as a refugee.  Notably, Omar’s statements also systematically called out the disparities between “white families” and black families, making her speech not just about oppression, but about white privilege as well.  (Clarion Project, 7/8/2020)

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CHURCHES SPREAD VIRUS

The virus has infiltrated Sunday sermons, meetings of ministers and Christian youth camps in Colorado and Missouri.  It has struck churches that reopened cautiously with face masks and social distancing in the pews, as well as some that defied lockdowns and refused to heed new limits on numbers of worshipers.

Pastors and their families have tested positive, as have church ushers, front-door greeters and hundreds of churchgoers.  In Texas, about 50 people contracted the virus after a pastor told congregants they could once again hug one another.  In Florida, a teenage girl died last month after attending a youth party at her church.

More than 650 coronavirus cases have been linked to nearly 40 churches and religious events across the United States since the beginning of the pandemic, with many of them erupting over the last month as Americans resumed their pre-pandemic activities, according to a New York Times database.    (NY Times, 7/8/2020)

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PLOT TO BLOW UP ST. PAUL’S

An unrepentant Muslim convert who was on course to become the UK’s first female homegrown suicide bomber has been jailed for a minimum of 14 years for plotting a terror attack at St Paul’s Cathedral.

But it is only good news for now, since Western leaders continue in their willful ignorance about jihad; jihadis go to jail and return to society unchanged or even more hardened in their violent beliefs than they were before.  Jihadis use the prison system to spread their messages of jihad and Islamic supremacy.   Anywhere they go, they view themselves as committed servants of Allah on the mission to expand and conquer, as per Islamic teachings.   British prisons are now grounds for radicalization; Muslim prison gangs have even been caught beating prisoners who won’t convert to Islam.  Female jihadis are no different from their male counterparts, although they are often presented in the media as victims.  The reality is that they victimize as much as the men do, and if they have children, they train them to be hardcore jihad fighters.  (Jihad Watch, 7/5/2020)

________________________________

The Implications of Withdrawing American Troops from Germany
by Alexander Luck: who received his MA in Political Science from the University of Leipzig.
FPRI (Foreign Policy Research Institute) Philadelphia, June 2020, A nation must think before it acts.

. . . Whatever the cause of the decision, the proposal has led to renewed debate over the significance of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), German contributions to the Alliance, and the security benefits that Berlin derives from being a member.  The potential reallocation of forces has also caused European national security observers to take a closer look at the relevance of American military assets for national foreign policy and the benefits—actual or perceived—to its European partners. . . . the current American effort appears to have significant flaws in the limited impact on Germany, should redistribution simply mean troops remain in Europe, and the near impossibility of expecting Bundeswehr to be funded to the tune of 2% GDP any time soon . . . any drastic reductions would appear to pose a significant problem for unilateral U.S. military operations in support of its sovereign foreign policy execution.(https://www.fpri.org/article/2020/06/the-implications-of-withdrawing-american-troops-from-germany/)   (6/30/2020)

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AUSTRALIA PLANS FOR ARMED CONFLICT

Australia must and will prepare for the real risk of armed conflict in its region: that was the bracing message of the new defense plan launched by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday.

The document is innocuously titled the Defence Strategic Update.  But that is a euphemism for something of profound significance to the nation’s future – a blueprint for a military capable of fighting major wars, and thus in principle helping to prevent them from breaking out.

At one level, this is simply about government executing its first duty: providing for the security of the nation, its interests and values.

What has changed is that the government now recognises a rapidly worsening horizon of risk and knows it can no longer defer hard choices about what the Australian Defence Force is for.

The landscape of strategic hazard is much to do with the way in which the People’s Republic of China has not only strengthened its armed forces, but projected power right across the region that Australia calls home – the Indo-Pacific.

Depressingly, the opportunity for co-operation that came with the COVID-19 pandemic – in theory, a shared challenge that should compel nations to suspend their rivalry – has been lost. The reality is that China has chosen this window to intensify its push for dominance, from Hong Kong to Taiwan, from Japan to the South China Sea, from the Indian border to economic leverage against Australia.

China is increasingly active as a military power in south-east Asia, the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.   Much of the arc to Australia’s north is now a region of contestation and power plays, not only between China and America but increasingly between China and others such as Japan, India, Vietnam and Indonesia.

And Canberra has responded to this with the unequivocal statement that deterring threats to Australia’s interests in this arc – these northern, western, and eastern approaches – is the foremost priority for our forces’ sovereign capability that demonstrates an intent to allow Australian forces to operate more independently of our American ally is the new plan’s commitment to build a dedicated Australian satellite network and ground stations.

In other words, Australia is finally getting serious about being able to find and target potential adversaries without heavy reliance on the United States.

The government is also committing to stockpile much larger quantities of ammunition and fuel on Australian soil, so that in a future crisis this nation’s military would be able to sustain a long conflict or blockade.

The overall plan is a paradox of both less and more reliance on America.   Despite these steps towards more independent Australian deterrence and war-fighting capacity, the continued modernization of the force – longer-range missiles, more advanced aircraft, ships and unmanned systems – will depend fundamentally on US technology and supply.

And Morrison is certainly not writing off the future of the US alliance.   Despite all the awful vicissitudes of the Trump presidency, it is clear that the Australian strategic establishment remains convinced that the United States will remain engaged in our region.

After all, if the US is serious about competing with China – and there seems bipartisanship on this in Washington – then it is going to need to remain active in the Indo-Pacific and to sustain the alliances and partnerships that have been a unique American strength.  (Rory Medcalf, Sydney Morning Herald, 7/2/2020)

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BLACK LIVES MATTER IS A MARXIST ORGANIZATION

Black Lives Matter is a Marxist revolutionary movement aimed at transforming the United States into a communist dystopia.   BLM states that it wants to abolish the nuclear family, police, prisons and capitalism.   BLM leaders have threatened to “burn down the system” if their demands are not met.   They are also training militias.

“Cutting the LAPD budget means longer responses to 911 emergency calls, officers calling for backup won’t get it, and rape, murder and assault investigations won’t occur or will take forever to initiate, let alone complete.” — Los Angeles Police Protective League, the city’s police union.

“White people are so confused in America . . .   If there is systematic racism today it is a racism against white people, in the sense that white people are told that they are responsible for all the evils in the world . . . ”  (Dr. Carol M. Swain, university professor and advisory board member of Black Voices for Trump.  Gatestone, 7/2/2020)

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BLACK ON BLACK VIOLENCE ONLY GETS WORSE

Chicago has long struggled with violent crime, and Democratic leaders in the city haven’t been able to do anything about it.   Over the Independence Day weekend, that violence truly became out of control, with more than 70 people shot in the city, 14 of whom died.

It comes at a time when Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot faces increased scrutiny over her running of the city, and her constant pandering to the most far-left elements of the Democratic Party.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that some 74 people were shot over the weekend, 14 fatally, by 6:45 p.m. on Sunday, July 5.  If you believe the Chicago Tribune instead, the number was actually 80 people shot, and 17 people killed, by 5:29 p.m. on Sunday.

Whichever number is accurate, it’s too high.  (The Liberty Revolution, 7/8/2020)

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LATEST STATS ON MODERN SLAVERY

• There are an estimated 136,000 people living in modern slavery just in Britain.  Slavery in the UK takes the form of forced labor, and domestic and sexual exploitation.   Albanians and Vietnamese are among the groups that constitute the majority of slaves. — Global Slavery Index, 2018.
• There are currently an estimated 9.2 million black slaves in Africa.  Slavery, according to the index, includes forced labor, forced sexual exploitation and forced marriage. — Global Slavery Index, 2018.
• “According to the U.N.’s International Labor Organization (ILO), there are more than three times as many people in forced servitude today as were captured and sold during the 350-year span of the transatlantic slave trade,” Time Magazine,March 14, 2019.

(Judith Bergman, Gatestone, 6/27/2020)

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TO THE POINT

• Mauritanian Anti-Slavery Activist Maryam Bint Al-Sheikh: Slavery Still Exists in Mauritania; Slaves Can Be Bequeathed From Father To Son.  (MEMRI 7/5/2020)
• South African Farm Murders are ‘National Emergency’ Says DA, Calls for Urgent Parliamentary Debate — The Democratic Alliance (DA) has requested a debate in the National Assembly on the “scourge” of farm attacks and murders across rural South Africa, many of which have been “particularly heinous in nature with brutal torture”.   These attacks, they say, are a “national emergency” which must be addressed as a matter of urgency.(https://www.sapeople.com/2020/06/25/sa-farm-murders-are-          national-emergency-says-da-and-calls-for-urgent-                                        parliamentary-)
• South Africa To Borrow $7 Billion Globally as Debt Rises by SAPeople Staff Writer – Jun 24, 2020 — The government will need to borrow $7 billion from international finance institutions as one of the measures to cover the budget hole brought about by South Africa’s response to COVID-19,   Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said today during his supplementary budget.(https://www.sapeople.com/2020/06/24/south-africa-to-                         borrow-7-billion-globally-as-debt-rises/)

• King Leopold’s legacy:   The lingering chaos in DR Congo
 60 years after independence, traces of the system of exploitation and violence that Leopold II and colonial-era Belgium created still remain in DR Congo.  The propensity for violence is inherited, experts say. — More than a century of looting and terror began in 1885 when King Leopold II and Belgium were granted then barely developed Congo Basin at the Berlin Conference.   The “Congo Free State” served solely to enrich the monarch.   Congolese labor oiled this machine.   Anyone who resisted or stood in their way was brutally punished — photographs and reports of hands chopped off bear testimony to the stories.   This is how it largely remained, until Congo was given independence on 30 June 1960.   Yet, even 60 years later —with the exception of a small elite —many children are still born into bitter poverty.              (https://www.dw.com/en/king-leopolds-legacy-the-lingering-chaos-in-dr-congo/a-53982357)
• “RUNNING THE WORLD SINCE 1776” was the message on a Tee-shirt I saw this morning.   Are people really that ignorant?  The US did not become the leading power in the world until 1948!  A lot of people won’t even question it.

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AFTER THOUGHT

I finally got my malaria pills!

I ordered them over three months ago when I was given a new prescription.

I’ve been coming down with malaria for over 40 years.   It still comes back.   It was coming back once a year but it’s been three years since I’ve had it.  I was tempted to not bother buying the pills as they are quite expensive.  But there’s nothing worse than the shakes from malaria and I feel better knowing there’s a pill there I can take.  Just one and I’m usually ok.

But there was a complication this time.   Thanks to President Trump millions of people are taking chloroquine for Covid-19.   This led to a shortage and the price went up.   $132 for 24 pills.

Malaria remains the number one killer in the world.  Maybe Covid-19 has overtaken it temporarily.   But the pesky mosquito will be back, I’m sure of it.  All those aggressive females will be biting us wherever we go, taking every opportunity to suck the blood out of us.  (Only the females spread the disease.)

It used to be said that on the first day with malaria you’re afraid you are going to die.  On the second day, you’re afraid you’re going to live!

“O Lord, all my longing is before you; my sighing is not hidden from you. My heart throbs; my strength fails me, and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.” (Psalm 38:9-10)

 

 

HATRED OF CIVILIZATION BEHIND RIOTS

Protesters gather in front of a liquor store in flames near the police building in Minneapolis. Photo AFP

“The first thing to understand about the destructive mob riots sweeping the country is that they aren’t race riots.  The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25 while being arrested by the police is merely the pretext for the violence.  The cause is hatred.

“Hatred of America, first of all, but ultimately hatred of civilized order itself.

“Many of the thugs looting and destroying property are white.  So what we are witnessing is not a battle between black and white.  It’s a battle between the forces of civilization, on the one hand, and the forces of anarchy, on the other.

“It is curious that the most egregious scenes of violence are taking place in blue states in cities run by left-wing mayors.  Many of the mayors and chiefs of police are themselves black.  In many locales, the police have been told to stand down as the mob rampages.   The mayor of Minneapolis blamed “white supremacists” and “outsiders” for the violence.

“Unfortunately for that assertion, there are no white supremacists to be found, only members of Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and kindred groups.   An Analysis of the ZIP codes of those arrested shows that they are overwhelmingly from the Minneapolis area.

“Meanwhile, various celebrities are encouraging lawlessness by cheering on the malefactors, publicly promising to post bail for them.”   (“Those burning our cities aim to destroy our civilization,” Roger Kimball, the Epoch Times, 6/4/2020).

Mr. Kimball quoted Tucker Carlson who said:   ‘What you’re watching is the ancient battle between those who have a stake in society, and those who don’t, and seek to destroy it.”

He added:  “I should say a word about The Narrative.   The official line is that police officer (now ex-police officer) Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for nearly nine minutes and asphyxiating him.  The whole horrible incident was captured on video – Floyd can be heard piteously saying “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe” – so it’s an open and shut case.

“Except that there is a wrinkle.   The preliminary autopsy report revealed “no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.”   The report went on to note that “Mr. Floyd had underlying health conditions including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease.  The combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death.”

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Black lives matter wants more family breakdown  (Manifesto)

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

We foster a queer‐affirming network.  When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).

(Black Lives Matter. What we believe.  https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/?fbclid=IwAR1ynQIlPCxVCMr2kfdfsM10RTHOW9CjwEsNcVpACMmkDSWyy1zDSNHAvUo)

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GERMANY – US TROOP REDUCTION COULD HARM NATO SECURITY

Germany’s defense minister suggested that U.S. President Donald Trump’s reported plans to take American troops out of Germany could weaken the U.S. as well as the NATO alliance.  Trump is said to have signed off on a plan to reduce troops stationed in Germany from 34,500 to no more than 25,000.  German Defens e Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said Berlin hasn’t been informed of any such move, but “the fact is that the presence of U.S soldiers in Germany serves . . .  America’s own security.”   (Lansing State Journal, 6/9/2020).

Independently of the Trump administration’s recent move in that direction, German government advisors are hinting of possible US troop reductions in Germany.   In a current analysis of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), the author notes that, given the Corona crisis is inducing a drastic slump in the US economy and the national debt is likely to skyrocket to over 100 percent, it can be expected that Washington will have to set certain priorities in its military policy.   The USA would focus more than before on the power struggle with China and possibly reduce its presence in Europe.   The Trump administration’s relevant plans have been met with strong criticism in Washington and Berlin.  If implemented it would be “a gift for Putin,” according to US politicians and German military officials.   It would certainly not be easy for the USA to make major reductions in Germany, where its military installations are playing a key role in US wars.  (German Foreign Policy, 6/9/2020)

The German government is using the Covid-19 pandemic to expand its strategic disengagement from the USA.   According to reports, Germany is leading efforts to form a European “Vaccine Alliance,” together with France, Italy and the Netherlands to prevent the EU from losing out to the United States and China “in the geopolitical race for a Coronavirus vaccine.”   The participating states are already negotiating with pharmaceutical companies, which would receive government research funds and purchase guarantees and in return organize the desired Covid-19 vaccine’s distribution according to their own concepts. It has previously been made known that the Trump-Administration, in return for billions in subsidies, had secured national priority access to the majority portion of a future vaccine.  Now, the EU is planning billions in subsidies for pharmaceutical companies, in spite of the fact that they are already known for their huge profits.   (German Foreign Policy, 6/8/2020)

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GEORGE FLOYD NOT A MARTYR

[Black] Conservative commentator Candace Owens lashed out at the emerging personality cult of George Floyd, whose death in Minneapolis last month first sparked protests and then riots.

“I do not support George Floyd and the media depiction of him as a martyr for black America,” she said in Facebook Live video on Wednesday.

Referring to the writings of African-American writer and filmmaker Shelby Steele, Owens said black Americans spend too much time defending criminals.

“We are unique in that we are the only people that fight and scream and demand support and justice for the people in our community that are up to no good,” she said.

. . . Owens noted Floyd’s prison record, and said that “I am not going to play a part of the broken black culture that always wants to martyr criminals, to pretend that they were upstanding human beings that just wanted to help society.”

“He has a rap sheet that was long and was dangerous,” she said. “He was an example of a violent criminal his entire life, OK, up until the very last moment.”

. . . Owens said no one who has the kind of criminal record Floyd had should be held up as a model citizen, but black Americans are doing just that.  “We are embarrassing in that regard.  This is why we have a cycle and a toxic culture because nobody wants to tell the truth in black America.  It is so easy to be effective it is so easy to ask white people to bow down and apologize and do all these things for us. It is crap,” she said.    (World News Daily, 6/9/2020)

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Thousands rally in Tel Aviv against Netanyahu’s annexation plans
Meretz MK says move would ‘replace an occupation . . . with an apartheid’; Joint List chief:  Jews, Arabs who want peace must oppose extending Israeli sovereignty to parts of West Bank

Thousands of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv Saturday evening to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge to begin annexing parts of the West Bank next month.  Police initially sought to block the rally but backtracked Friday after meeting with organizers, who urged participants to wear masks and adhere to social distancing guidelines.  Dozens of officers were securing the demonstration after police said attendance would be capped at 2,000, though the Haaretz daily put turnout at 6,000 people in what appeared to be the largest protest in the country since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

The demonstration was organized by the left-wing Meretz party and the communist Hadash faction of the majority-Arab Joint List, along with several other left-wing rights groups.  MK Nitzan Horowitz, the head of Meretz, told the crowd that annexation would be a “war crime” and cost Israel millions as the economy is already reeling due to the pandemic.  “We cannot replace an occupation of dozens of years with an apartheid that will last forever,” shouted a hoarse Horowitz.  “Yes, to two states for two peoples, no to violence and bloodshed,” he continued. “No to annexation, yes to peace.” (https://www.timesofisrael.com/thousands-rally-in-tel-aviv-against-netanyahus-annexation-plans/)

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SERBIAN CHURCHGOERS ROBBED BY MUSLIMS DURING SERVICE

“According to the latest update of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are currently 8,052 migrants in Serbia, the majority of them in 19 refugee centers across the country.   Their stated countries of origin are Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iraq, Iran, Morocco and Palestine.”

Hmmm, what do all those countries (and “Palestine”) have in common?   Could it be an ideology that holds Christianity in contempt and considers Christians “the most vile of created beings” (cf. Qur’an 98:6)?

Two migrants of unknown origin entered the St. Alexander Nevsky church in the Serbian capital Belgrade on Sunday and then robbed several attendants of the liturgy of their money and mobile phones. Those attending the church service managed to catch one of the thieves and hand him over to police responding to the scene, but the other got away.   (Jihad Watch, 6/7/2020)

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The 100-year wound that Hungary cannot forget
by Nick Thorpe, BBC News, Hungary, 4 June 2020.

Exactly 100 years ago, in the Trianon palace at Versailles, two medium-ranking Hungarian officials signed away two thirds of their country, and 3.3 million of their compatriots.   A new monument has appeared in the past weeks in front of parliament in Budapest, among many already erected by Viktor Orban’s government to  Hungary’s past glories.   For Hungary the 1920 treaty was a national wound that still festers to this day. Mr. Orban’s message to the world is that Hungary must now be respected. For his critics, he has dug deeper into that wound.

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What Hungary lost in the Treaty of Trianon

As the Austro-Hungarian empire fell apart at the end of World War One, historic Hungary was forced to cede what is now Slovakia, Vojvodina, Croatia, part of Slovenia, Ruthenia, the Burgenland and Transylvania to the new states of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, to a much-enlarged Romania, and even to Austria, a fellow loser in the war.  (MORE:  https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europ  6/4/2020)

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How they see us:  Racism, riots, and police brutality                           (The Week, 6 June 2020)

Suffocated to death for the color of your skin:   That is “the terrifying reality of what it really means to be black in America right now,” said Piers Morgan at the Daily Mail (U.K.).   The entire world has seen the video of the arrest and killing of George Floyd.   For nearly nine excruciating minutes, white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin crushed the life out of the handcuffed, defenseless Floyd. “Even by the dreadful standards of police violence against black people in America,” this heartless murder was a new low.   Of course American cities erupted in riots — how could they not?   What might have quelled them was a president speaking with empathy and grace and pledging an end to police brutality.   Instead, as America burned, Donald Trump “poured fuel onto the fire.”   He actually threatened war crimes against his own people, tweeting, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”   Now he is ordering the U.S. military into the streets.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking, said the Global Times (China) in an editorial.   Hong Kong suffered months of violent unrest last year, during which rioters caused hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage and injured countless police officers.   China never sent in the troops, yet Washington still “arrogantly and unreasonably” accused Beijing of human rights abuses.   Meanwhile, “the riots in the U.S. have lasted just a week,” and “efforts for reaching a peaceful solution have barely been made,” but already Trump is deploying soldiers.   The U.S. may have the world’s strongest military, but its system of governance stands revealed as a failure.   The COVID-19 epidemic there rages out of control, and now the social unrest “exposes the deep-rooted problem of inequality and a lack of justice.”

“Looted shops, burned-out office buildings, smashed ATMs, and wrecked police cars” litter American streets, said Alexander Gasyuk at Rossiyskaya Gazeta (Russia).   Protesters burned the U.S. flag right outside the White House, as Trump hid inside, tweeting threats that he would unleash “vicious dogs” on his oppressed citizens.  The demonstrators want justice for Floyd, but the U.S. justice system nearly always lets police who kill unarmed black men go free.   The Ferguson, Mo., officer who shot Michael Brown six times in 2012 was acquitted because he supposedly “acted in self-defense.”  That same excuse got George Zimmerman — not even a cop but a neighborhood watch volunteer — off the hook for the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

The U.S. has always reminded me of India, said Malachi O’Doherty at the Belfast Telegraph (U.K.).   “Both are huge, rich countries with swathes of poverty and dereliction,” and in both it’s perfectly acceptable to stride past homeless beggars. “De facto segregation seems accepted as normal,” with black Americans relegated to an underclass.   As in every caste system, state organs freely oppress those on the bottom.   The entire world sees that clearly now. Until the U.S. lives up to its promise of equality for all, it can never be a model to the rest of us.  (The Week, 6/7/2020)   (Copyright © 2020 The Week Publications, Inc, All rights reserved)

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ANALYSIS:   A rupture looms between Israel and the United States [over China]
As an American-Chinese power struggle ramps up, the Jewish state increasingly feels the fallout with US pressure to nix deals it deems detrimental to its security interests.

WASHINGTON (JTA) 3 June 2020 — Israel’s announcement last week that an Israeli consortium would build Sorek 2, the world’s largest desalination plant, surprised many who had been watching the deal:   The contract had been expected to go to a Hong Kong-based company.  But that was before the Trump administration ramped up pressure on Israel to diminish its ties to China.   For years, Israel has been working to dramatically expand trade with China, one of the world’s largest markets.   That push is suddenly running up against strong opposition from the White House, as the Trump administration pivots from the decades-old policy of increasing US engagement with China to treating the country as an increasingly bitter rival.

The Sorek 2 deal was widely seen as a bow to pressure from the Trump administration, which is pushing Israel and other key allies to curtail trade with China.   But observers of this deepening dynamic say it may not be enough to head off a US-Israel crisis over China.  A Chinese company, SIPG, is building a major port in Haifa and will control it for 25 years.  The Trump administration, according to multiple insiders, wants Israel to roll back at least part of that deal. The Israelis consider it a done deal, even if they may have regrets over it.

“It’s a bit of a shock to the system,” Jonathan Schanzer, the vice president of a think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, that has close ties with the Trump administration and with the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said of the looming crisis.   “We had been hearing from the administration officials and even some Israeli diplomats about some of the complications arising from the intensification of the great power competition between the US and China.”

China has been building infrastructure in Israel since at least 2007, when the China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. brought in 300 workers to build the tunnel system linking the southern entrance to Haifa with the suburbs to the city’s north.   That success has led to a thirst for Chinese construction, and there was talk of China building new rail links in Israel.   China’s Bright Food Group owns a controlling stake in Tnuva, Israel’s preeminent dairy.   Decoupling from China won’t be easy.   Still, Israel’s willingness last week to cut China out of the Sorek 2 desalination deal shows it is ready to roll back engagement on some fronts.
(https://www.timesofisrael.com/breaking-china-a-rupture-looms-between-israel-and-the-united-states/)

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TO THE POINT

• Cecil Rhodes:   Councillors demand Oxford Uni statue removal by Michael Race, BBC News, 9 June 2020 – A group of councillors has backed the campaign to remove a statue of imperialist Cecil Rhodes and called on Oxford University to “decolonise.”   Twenty-six Oxford city councillors signed a letter saying the figure at Oriel College was “incompatible” with the city’s “commitment to anti-racism.”   A protest by the “Rhodes Must Fall” campaign as part of the Black Lives Matter movement will be held later.   (MORE: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-52975687)
• Billions More Desert Locusts Devour Crops from India to Africa, Adding to Farmers’ Pandemic Woes by George Thomas, Christian Broadcasting Network, Inc., 28 May 2020 – From India and Pakistan to Africa and the Middle East, farmers face a perfect storm.   Already struggling with crippling coronavirus lockdowns, they face billions of locusts devouring crops and putting millions at risk.   The scenes out of parts of northern and central India this week were alarming to watch as billions of desert locusts descended on several states.   And it’s only going to get worse.  Heavy rains and the cyclone season in June are expected to see the swarms multiply.
• Why Hong Kongers may get path to UK citizenship — Britain will change its immigration rules to allow millions of people from Hong Kong “a route to citizenship” if China passes controversial new national security laws, Boris Johnson has said.  In an article for The Times, the prime minister warns that the new controls would “dramatically erode” Hong Kong’s autonomy, which would breach the terms of China’s Joint Declaration treaty with the UK.  Johnson says he is willing to make one of the “biggest changes in our visa system in British history,” by allowing up to three million Hong Kong residents extended visa-free access to Britain and the opportunity to pursue citizenship.   (The Week, 6/3/2020)
• Antifa is an extremist movement that demands nothing less than the destruction of America and its democratic system of government.  (Clarion Project, 6/3/2020)
• “As it rises in prominence, the issue of defunding police will divide the Democratic Party more than the GOP.   For while the hard left sees cops in ideological and class terms as racist and fascist, the right, by and large, sees the police as the last line of defense against the anarchy we saw erupt when there were not enough cops in New York and D.C. to control the mobs looting Fifth Avenue and Georgetown.”   (PB, 6/9/2020)
• Racist — a person who shows or feels discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or who believes that a particular race is superior to another.   (Google Dictionary)
• Authorities in Antwerp removed a statue of Belgium’s King Leopold II after it was vandalised during anti-racism protests. Between 1885 and 1908 Leopold ran Congo as his fief; millions are estimated to have been killed under his regime.  In Britain, London’s mayor announced a review of the capital’s statues.  On Sunday protesters toppled a statue of Edward Colston, a slave trader, in Bristol.   (The Economist, 6/10/2020)
• Germany warns Israel against West Bank annexation plans Jerusalem – Germany’s foreign minister on Wednesday warned Israel that its plan to begin annexing parts of the West Bank would violate international law, but he declined to say how Germany or Europe would respond.   The Jerusalem visit comes weeks before Israel intends to extend its sovereignty over Jewish West Bank settlements.   Critics say the annexation plan would destroy any hope for establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.   The Palestinians seek all of the occupied West Bank for an independent state.  (Lansing State Journal,  6/11).

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AFTERTHOUGHT

LEARN TO LET GO!

A significant change has taken place in the last couple of weeks.  Now , Antifa and Black Lives Matter have the upper hand; while the police are vilified.

How long can our civilization last?  How much longer does the US have?

Daniel 2:44 says:  “And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall  break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.”

At the end of all this is the Kingdom of God, which Christians have been praying for throughout the generations.  We need to understand something about the Kingdom of God.  It cannot come until the fall of all the kingdoms and republics that exist in this world at this time.   That includes the United States.

Over 40 years ago, my wife and I lived in Rhodesia, a country that does not exist any more.  As the threats to Rhodesia became more serious, there was a tendency for Christians to become more political.  They were attempting to save the country, their homes and their livelihood.  It was futile. Rhodesians had to learn to let go and let God fulfill His purpose.

Daniel 2:21 shows us that God is behind the rise and fall of nations.  “And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.”

The establishment of the Kingdom of God may be nearer than we think. We’ve all been praying for it for decades.  Let us now pray fervently that God will establish it soon.

MR     

RACE SET TO DOMINATE DECADE

America is not an inherently racist society, as the dominant ethnic group is working hard on eliminating itself.

Note this from Wikipedia:   “As a result of its changed makeup and rapid growth, new immigration since 1965 has altered the nation’s racial and ethnic composition.   In 1965, 84% of Americans were non-Hispanic whites. By 2015, that share had declined to 62%. Meanwhile, the Hispanic share of the U.S. population rose from 4% in 1965 to 18% in 2015.”  (posted Sep 28, 2015).   By now, the white population is well under 60%.   A sudden recent drop in the birthrate means that they will soon be a minority themselves.  This means that race related matters are set to dominate our news in the next few years.  Schools are already majority non-white.

Nor does the United States discriminate in jobs and income.  There are non-white ethnic groups that have done very well in the US.  Our daughter lives in a nice, modern suburb where there are lots of Indians, people who have moved from the sub-continent, many for computer related jobs.   The Chinese and Japanese have also done well.   Before them, the Jews, also a minority, were very successful.

Minneapolis itself, where the death of George Floyd took place, is home to a large Somali community.   A few years ago, the BBC asked many Somalis if they were happy there.  None of them were and all said they would rather live in an Islamic society.

So, how then do you explain the riots and demonstrations that are affecting the country now?

The incident that sparked the riots was the murder of George Floyd when a policeman had his knee on his neck for nine minutes.   Incidents like it have happened all too often, but they happen to white people, too.

On February 28th, 2015, Deven Guilford, a 17-year-old white kid was shot seven times by a white policeman in Eaton County where we live in Michigan.   The difference between George Floyd and Deven?   The media did not think Deven’s death warranted any coverage.  The death of a black man at the hands of white police is always national news, but the death of a white kid in a similar manner is not!

America has been hit by a triple whammy the last three months.   First, there was the corona virus; secondly, the collapse of much of the economy, with 40 million unemployed; and third, racial problems which have resurfaced.   The riots are out of all proportion to the death of George Floyd, whose brother has called for people to stop rioting.  There were reports of people being bussed in to the big cities to riot; and  of mysterious piles of bricks left on street corners for people to throw.   There has been speculation that much of it has been orchestrated from outside.   When you consider that over 16% of all the people living in the US are foreign born, it’s not too unbelievable that some may be agents of foreign governments.

With some groups doing exceptionally well, whites in the middle and others left behind, it’s impossible to achieve total equality no matter what changes are made.   Almost 2,000 years ago, the early Christians experienced a problem, which involved two ethnic groups.  One group believed they were being discriminated against by the other.

“Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution” (Acts 6:1).  Because the early Christians were such a small group, they were able to resolve this by appointing deacons who distributed food and clothing more evenly.

Later, in Galatians 2 we read of an incident where the Apostle Peter was guilty of what today would be called racism.  Peter showed favoritism to the Jewish converts over those from a gentile background.

If they couldn’t achieve total equality, how can we?

One final thought:   Even in African countries, where black Africans rule, black people are treated badly.  Clearly, millions of Africans would rather live in the United States than stay at home!

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ATTACKS ON ASIANS INCREASING

Attacks on East Asian people living in the US have shot up during the pandemic, revealing an uncomfortable truth about American identity.

Though she was not born in the US, nothing about Tracy Wen Liu’s life in the country felt “un-American.”   Ms, Liu went to football games, watched Sex and the City and volunteered at food banks.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, the 31-year-old didn’t think anything of being East Asian and living in Austin, Texas.   “Honestly, I didn’t really think I stood out a lot,” she says.

That has changed.  With the outbreak of the pandemic that has killed around 100,000 people in the US, being Asian in America can make you a target – and many, including Ms Liu, have felt it.

In her case, she says a Korean friend was pushed and yelled at by several people in a grocery store, and then asked to leave, simply because she was Asian and wore a mask.

In states including New York, California, and Texas, East Asians have been spat on, punched or kicked – and in one case even stabbed.

Whether they have been faced with outright violence, bullying or more insidious forms of social or political abuse, a spike in anti- Asian prejudice has left many Asians – which in the US refers to people of east or southeast Asian descent – wondering where they fit in American society.

“When I first came here five years ago, my goal was to adapt to American culture as soon as possible,” says Ms Liu.

“Then the pandemic made me realise that because I am Asian, and because of how I look like or where I was born, I could never become one of them.”   (by Helier Cheung & Zhaoyin Feng & Boer Deng, BBC News, 5/27/20)

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DESIGNATE ANTIFA A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION?

Responding to the riots that have wracked America for close to a week, President Trump stated that he would designate Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.

Between local and federal law enforcement agencies, there appears to be ample evidence that outside agitators belonging at least in part (if not wholly) to Antifa, a Far-Left group, have played a huge part in transforming what began as peaceful protests against the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police into the violent rioting that is being seen today in the streets of American cities.

One Clarion source in Minneapolis reported how he watched the protests turn from demonstrations to organized riots, and how Antifa brought weapons to the protests.   He estimated there were possibly between 10-12 outside groups.   As Antifa is an amorphous group, it is hard to know how many of these groups were affiliated with Antifa.

Trump’s vow to designate Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization has been met with derision from the Left (which was predictable) as well as criticism from those who would also like to see white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups equally designated, as these groups are also dangerous, violent and act like terrorist organizations.

Yet today it is Antifa at the forefront.   If we hadn’t seen the group’s true colors before (which we did), its current manifestation in the 2020 riots is one of violence and instigation to more violence.   In fact, the group believes that their use of violence is actually justified as a self-defensive measure.   (Clarion Project, 6/2/2020)

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FOREIGN VIEWS

How is it playing abroad?   Not so well for the US.   Solidarity protests have erupted outside US consulates and embassies in London, Berlin, and Milan.   Meanwhile, several authoritarian countries that have recently gotten an earful from Washington over their own repression have gleefully shot back at the White House: Turkey’s president decried the US’ “racist and fascist” police, Iran’s supreme leader let off a tweet in Spanish about the perils of being black in America, while the country’s ultraconservative former president allowed himself a provocative Tupac quote.   China, for its part, had a field day in light of recent criticism of its crackdown on Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Russia and China seem to be doing their best to further inflame political tensions over the protests – not that the US needs much help on that score at the moment.  (Gzero Signal, 6/2/2020)

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RUSSIAN REACTION TO RIOTS

Russia’s political establishment drew satisfaction at seeing American pretensions to lecture others on human rights punctured by the killing of George Floyd and the massive demonstrations that it triggered.   This satisfaction was somewhat tempered by the knowledge that liberal voices in the United States, for example George Soros, were not Russia’s friends and some commentators even endorsed the theory that the Democrats had instigated and were trying to capitalize on the riots.   Russia’s wariness about the Democrats was also reflected in the quick reaction to remarks by Obama’s National Security Adviser, Susan Rice, that insinuated that Russia had a hand in the riots.   Russian press commentary also speculated on how the disorders would impact on the November 2020 presidential elections in the United States.   Below is a survey of Russian reactions to the events in the United States:

Russian officials, surrogates and state-controlled outlets expressed satisfaction at America’s discomfiture and the discomfiture of Russian liberals, who disdained their government and looked up to the US. Senator Alexey Pushkov tweeted:   The US is starting to crumble.  This is visible in Syria and Afghanistan, in the disaster with Covid-19 within the USA itself, in the [US’] inability to help its European allies at the peak of the pandemic, in the hysterical but sketchy accusations against China, in the racial rebellion, in the internal schism.   The US has entered an era of turmoil.  (MEMRI, 6/2/2020)

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FOREIGN REPORTS:

Lebanese Intl Affairs Expert: US Is Heading Toward Bloody Civil War, Disintegration (MEMRI, 6/1/2020)

German Foreign Minister says the protests are more than legitimate.  (BBC, 6/2/2020)

The US is dealing with three crises at once:   corona virus, a downturn in the economy and the racial problems that have plagued the country for decades.   (Jon Sopel, BBC, 6/2/2020)

The US can no longer lead the western world.  (Jon Sopel, same interview).

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MONASH GIVES ITSELF OVER TO FEMINISM

Monash University in Melbourne was named after Sir John Monash, a famous World War I general.   He was certainly no feminist.

The Australian Defence Force is planning to train its personnel with a Gender, Peace and Security Course to be run by Monash University.   The $12,000-a-head course will be run by two of their feminist professors who allegedly believe masculinist policies are to blame for many of our current political problems.

Monash University is arguably the most woke university in the southern hemisphere and was all too keen to install trigger warnings and safe spaces on their campuses.

In the space of two weeks, we have had Clementine Ford’s tweet about men not dying quickly enough with the coronavirus and now the government has given two feminists a platform in our defense force.

Clementine Ford, for now, still has her City of Melbourne ratepayer grant to spew her misandrist dribble.   Toxic masculinity is another theory that gets plenty of taxpayer funds as does feminism, Marxism, gender studies and other such very productive things. Whinging opinions which have no relevance.   These feminists are quacks just like the socialists.

If getting taxpayer funds at universities were not bad enough, the feminists can now take on our Defense Force.   And once again, spineless politicians don’t take any action.   The ADF allows its personnel to march every year in uniform in Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Chief of Army David Morrison was made Australian of the Year in 2016 for his feminist rantings which included telling us not to use the term “guys.”

In the US, President Obama turned the military into a bastion of social justice, diversity, and inclusiveness.   He spent the last six months of his presidency thinking about how to get transgenders into the army and into the restrooms of their choice.   Obama purged the military and retained only those who kissed his feet to be social justice warriors.   (Philippe Armstrong, The Unshackled, 5/29/2020)

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TWO COVERS ON THE ECONOMIST

We have two covers this week.   In most of our editions, as America records 100,000 deaths from covid-19, we ask how it has coped. Many Americans think their president has handled the epidemic disastrously, that their country has been hit uniquely hard and that there is a simple causal relationship between the two.   This is not supported by the numbers.   Or, at least, not yet.   The official death rate in America is about the same as in the European Union.  Overall, America has fared a bit worse than Switzerland and a bit better than the Netherlands, neither of which is a failed state.   That is because America’s handling of the virus reflects its strengths, as well as its weaknesses – and in particular its devolved system of government.

In our Asia edition we look at how China’s decision to impose a security law on Hong Kong threatens a broader reckoning with the world—and not just over Hong Kong’s future as a global financial centre, but also over the South China Sea and Taiwan.   The new law, written in Beijing, will create still-to-be-defined crimes of subversion and secession, terms used elsewhere in China to lock up dissidents, including Uighurs and Tibetans.   Hong Kong will have no say in drafting the law, which will let China station its secret police there.   The message is clear.   Rule by fear is about to begin.   (The Economist, 5/29/2020)

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The Epoch Times is a new conservative newspaper, published weekly.

STATES DEMANDING BIGGEST BAILOUTS DO LEAST TO CONTROL SPENDING, DEFICIT  (headline in the Epoch Times, 5/28/2020)

“When Illinois legislators approved a $42.8 billion budget for the coming year, during an emergency session over the Memorial Day weekend, official revenue projections were only for $36.8 billion.

“Lawmakers weren’t worried about the resulting deficit, however, because they assumed the state would borrow at least $5 billion to close the revenue gap.

“So they also voted themselves a tidy $1,800 pay raise on top of the $1,900 hike they gave themselves in 2019; state employees also got $261 million in scheduled pay raises.

“A few weeks earlier, state Senate President Don Harmon told the state’s congressional delegation that Illinois needed $42 billion in federal bailout funds, only $2.6 billion of which was attributable to unforeseen public health costs associated with the (virus).

“The biggest single chunk of the requested bailout was the $15 billion that Harmon said was needed “to stabilize the state budget.”  Harmon’s Democratic colleagues outnumber Republicans, 40-19.  Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker is a Democrat, and Democrats control the state House of Representatives, 74-44.

“Illinois isn’t unique in demanding billions of bailout dollars from federal taxpayers.   California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, pointing to a $54 billion budget deficit, is demanding a federal bailout, while New York’s Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, seeks nearly $62 billion.”   (Mark Tapscott, The Epoch Times, 5/28).

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GERMAN ARMY EXPANDS IN WEST AFRICA

With today’s decision to extend and expand the Bundeswehr’s deployment in Mali, Berlin is once again boosting the region’s militarization.   The attempt to defeat Sahel insurgents and jihadis by force has been a failure since troops from Germany and other European countries began their mission in Mali in 2013.   Since then, the war has been spreading because of socio-economic conflicts – first in Central Mali, then in Burkina Faso at Mali’s southeastern border.  Instead of taking preventive action with resolute economic support, Germany and other EU powers have continued to militarize the conflict.   This has simply made matters worse, and only helped push the region closer to the brink of the abyss, experts note in view of developments leading to a growing number of ethnically motivated massacres in several Sahel countries.   It was a European war, in the first place, that lit the spark to armed conflict in Mali.(German Foreign Policy, 5/29/2020)

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HISTORY:   67 YEARS AGO TODAY  (June 2^nd)

The coronation of Elizabeth II took place on 2 June 1953 at Westminster Abbey, London.   She acceded to the throne at the age of 25 upon the death of her father, George VI, on 6 February 1952, being proclaimed queen by her privy and executive councils shortly afterwards.

The coronation was held more than one year later because of the tradition of allowing an appropriate length of time to pass after a monarch dies before holding such festivals.   It also gave the planning committees adequate time to make preparations for the ceremony.   During the service, Elizabeth took an oath, was anointed with holy oil, invested with robes and regalia, and crowned Queen of the United Kingdom and her other realms and territories.”

Elizabeth, born in 1926, was the first-born daughter of Prince George, the second son of King George V.   Her grandfather died in 1936, and her uncle was proclaimed King Edward VIII.   Later that year, however, Edward abdicated over the controversy surrounding his decision to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, an American divorcee, and Elizabeth’s father was proclaimed King George VI in his place.   (Wikipedia and History.com)

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TO THE POINT

• “I do not use social media, so books are my salvation.  Television is unwatchable, full of sci-fi rubbish and superhero garbage.  How people can enjoy watching such trash is beyond me.  If I ruled Sky or the BBC, I would order only golden oldies – black and white films where men wore double-breasted suits and hats and women slinky décolleté dresses.  At least it would show our present braindead youth how sweet life was when people had manners.”  (Taki, aged 83, The Spectator, 3/21/2020).
• Britain said it would extend visa rights to every resident of Hong Kong who is eligible for a British National (Overseas) passport.  That would be around 2.9m of Hong Kong’s population of 7.4m. On Thursday Britain had indicated it would do so for the 350,000 who already held BNO passports, providing each with “a pathway to future citizenship.”   (The Economist, 5/30/2020)
• Scandinavian borders are slowly opening again.   From June 15th Norway and Denmark will permit each other’s tourists to visit, with certain restrictions.  But they will continue to shun Swedish visitors.  Sweden’s coronavirus lockdown was noticeably less strict than its neighbors’—it kept schools open, for example.   Its covid-19 infection rate remains much higher.  (The Economist, 5/30/2020)
• Iran would be willing to help Americans in their revolution. (MEMRI 6/2/2020)
• WITH so many “conservative” MPs obsessing over climate “emergencies” while also championing late-term abortions, LGBTQ schooling and softer bestiality laws, even those on the Left have had enough, telling Coalition MPs to get serious. (Politicom, Australia, 6/2/2020)
• Germany, which takes over the six-month rotating EU presidency on July 1, has announced that it will prioritize relations with China.   German Chancellor Angela Merkel is particularly determined to proceed with a major EU-China summit to be held in the German city of Leipzig in September.   She is reportedly under intense pressure from German automobile manufacturers, who are concerned about maintaining their access to the Chinese market.   (Gatestone, 6/2/2020)
• I’ve been reading an old (1979) book on travel in what was then the Soviet Union.   Interestingly, the term the Russians then used for western consumerism was veshchism, which meant literally, thingism.   (“No travel Like Russian Travel,” by Nora Beloff)

WHEN A CROCODILE EATS THE SUN

“

“When a Crocodile Eats The Sun” is one of the best books I’ve ever read.   I read it some years ago when I was making regular visits to Zimbabwe, the subject of the book by Peter Godwin.   Mr. Godwin was born and raised in Rhodesia as it was before 1980.   At the time of writing the book he was living in New York City and visiting Zimbabwe twice a year to see his elderly parents.  During this time his father was dying and eventually did die.

The title of the book comes from an old Shona proverb.   The Shona are the dominant tribe in Zimbabwe.  They believe that an eclipse of the sun is actually a crocodile eating the sun.  It is a warning of a coming calamity.

The eclipse was on June 21^st, 2001.   In the following years, Zimbabwe’s economy collapsed, millions of people starved to death and the country was plunged into chaos.  This all followed President Robert Mugabe’s decision to confiscate white-owned farms.   Food production fell by an estimated 90%.

In Rhodesian days, the country was the breadbasket of Africa; it now became an economic basket-case.   In one chapter his mother and a group of friends shared one tomato between them.  In a later chapter, he related the challenges he faced to cremate his father – the famine, together with AIDS, had overwhelmed the country’s funeral systems.

Those in the West who still think it makes no difference which ethnic group dominates a country, should study what happened to Rhodesia-Zimbabwe.

This does not mean that every nation that witnesses an eclipse of the sun will go through something similar.   But the eclipse seen by Americans last week reminded me of the book – and the consequences that followed the eclipse of the sun.

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DISASTER IN TEXAS

Just as some saw the eclipse as a sign of impending doom, so others feel the same way about the disaster in Texas.

If any problems follow the heavy rainfall in Texas, they are likely to be economic.   The US is already over $20 trillion in debt, money which has to be paid back at some point.   The Federal Government is offering Texas billions of dollars in assistance.   Private debt in the country is at an all-time high.   Student debt is a bubble waiting to burst.   And the only way to rebuild Texas is by borrowing more money.

You would think the world’s richest country would have “a rainy day fund” (no pun intended) but, in fact, we have so much debt, more disasters could easily break us.

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RECOMMITMENT TO AFGHANISTAN

A further financial burden that could break the United States is the war in Afghanistan.   After promising to pull the US out of America’s longest ever war, President Trump is now recommitting to the fight.   His military advisers think the US can win, where no previous foreign presence ever has.   We should remember that it was Afghanistan that broke the Soviet Union, both financially and militarily.   The US has a bad case of “imperial hubris” if we think it can’t happen here.   Afghanistan is not known as “the graveyard of empires” for nothing.

A few months ago I wrote that President Trump had made his biggest mistake, calling for Germany to spend billions more on its military.   History shows that decision could be fatal for Germany’s neighbors and others.   The decision to increase the military in Afghanistan could turn out to be Trump’s second biggest mistake.

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INTERNATIONAL COMPLICATION

KABUL/BERLIN/WASHINGTON  – In light of the new buildup of US troops in Afghanistan, experts are warning of a new proxy war between NATO and Russia at the Hindu Kush.   As observers unanimously explain, Russia has been able to expand its influence in Afghanistan significantly over the past few years. Moreover, the dismal results of NATO’s nearly 16 years of war have seriously damaged the West’s reputation in that country.   Moscow can now take advantage of this situation and enhance its prestige, according to reports.   A former top US intelligence official considers that Russian President Vladimir Putin sees Afghanistan as “one more hot spot, to exercise his influence” and depict Moscow “as the problem solver and peacemaker.”

If NATO and Russia ally with divergent forces at the Hindu Kush, it
could develop into another proxy war, as in Syria.   (German Foreign Policy 8/24)

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THE ENEMY WITHIN

August 24, 2017National

The Muslim Brotherhood has penetrated every one of our national security agencies, including our intelligence agencies, according to retired Navy admiral James “Ace” Lyons, former commander of the U.S. Pacific fleet…

Meanwhile, Judicial Watch recently obtained documents revealing that the FBI under director Robert Mueller purged hundreds of pages of training curricula related to Islamic terrorism at the behest of Muslim Brotherhood front groups who were unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation case….

(http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/08/national_security_coverups_missteps_and_miscalculations.html)

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MORE ENEMIES WITHIN

“Antifa” is a contraction of the words “anti” and “fascist.”   It’s a new word that will soon enter our dictionary.   It’s very misleading. People who identify with “Antifa” are not fighting fascism – they are, rather, trying to stop conservatives expressing any opinion different from their own.   Their opposition to freedom of speech shows that they are the fascists!

Note the following headline from the liberal-fascist New York Times: “Antifa grows as left wing faction set to literally fight the far right.” (8/17)   Just as you will never see a conservative editorial in the NYT, their readers will not allow conservative opinions to be expressed by anybody anywhere.

SKYFALL

Sky News in the UK is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who also owns Fox News in the US.   Sky has just decided not to relay segments from Fox, described variously as “right wing” and “extreme.”

Does anybody ever describe CNN as “left wing” and “extreme?”  It most assuredly is!

Reminds me of Isaiah 5:20:

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!