Solberg solemnly stated that, from 4pm from Saturday, (September 25), Norway will “remove most of the infection control measures,” giving “a big thank you” to citizens for complying.
The Norwegian government has declared that Covid is just like the flu, with no higher death toll due to 70% of the population being vaccinated. So most restrictions were abolished. Not everybody was happy with the decision. To my knowledge, this has not been announced on American TV.
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LA COUNTY ISSUES NEW COVID DIRECTIVES
The Los Angeles City Council on Oct. 6 approved one of the strictest COVID-19 vaccination mandates in the country, requiring proof of vaccination to enter indoor restaurants, movie theaters, salons, shopping centers, and many more indoor venues.
People will have to provide vaccination proof at gyms, sports arenas, museums, spas, indoor government facilities, malls, restaurants, and bars. For people with religious or medical exemptions, negative COVID-19 tests within 72 hours of entry will be required, according to the ordinance, which doesn’t make mention of “natural immunity” afforded by a previous COVID-19 infection.
Unvaccinated individuals attempting to use government services will be provided with “alternative arrangements for access to government services,” including online or outdoor services, or providing proof of a negative test to enter, according to the ordinance. (Jack Phillips, Epoch Times, 10/6/2021)
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NATURAL GAS PRICE SURGING
Global gas markets are preparing for a volatile winter, says Seb Kennedy. The world is fighting for gas – and China is determined to win. Xi Jinping raised the stakes by ordering China’s state-owned energy companies to secure supplies ‘at all costs.’ Britain, along with the rest of Europe, will face the full force of this crisis. So will this winter feel like the apocalypse? Hopefully not. But a gas shortage will cause huge disruption to the economy, widespread shortages and a political crisis from which even the Johnson administration, with its formidable ability to bounce back, may not recover. (The Spectator, 10/7/2021)
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ISLAM
Senior Official Of Al-Qaeda In The Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Ibrahim Al-Qosi, Threatens U.S. With Attacks More Painful, Powerful Than 9/11 (MEMRI, 10/7/2021)
Swedish artist Lars Vilks, 75, who was best known (some would say infamous) for drawing a cartoon of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, with a dog’s body, has been killed in a highly suspicious automobile accident in Sweden. He had previously survived two attempts on his life. It is possible that he was killed in a third. According to the UK’s Daily Mail, Vilks was traveling in a police car along with two police officers around three o’clock in the afternoon on Sunday in Markaryd, Sweden. The officers were supposed to be protecting him in light of the previous attempts to kill him and the ongoing threat under which he was living. The identities of the officers have not been revealed. The car Vilks was in was speeding. Suddenly, it veered into the lane of oncoming traffic, right into the path of a truck. (Jihad Watch, 10/5/2021)
Jihadi Clerics Rejoice In Death Of Swedish Cartoonist Lars Vilks In Car Accident: May He Burn In Hell Like He Burned Our Hearts With His Mockery Of Our Prophet (MEMRI, 10/5/2021)
MIDDLE EAST MIGRANTS – STAY IN YOUR CULTURE ZONE
As the prospect of great numbers of Afghans fleeing their country – five million have been mentioned – comes into focus, a near-universal assumption exists that the West – meaning here Western and Central Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand – should be their ultimate destination. But does this make sense?
From the Afghan perspective, living in Christian-heritage, secular societies offend many of their mores and creates severe stresses. Their general lack of skills appropriate to modern economies holds them back. Finding host populations prejudiced against them, they complain tearfully about structural racism, xenophobia, and “Islamophobia.” They point to hate incidents and even murderous attacks, such as those in New York City, North Carolina, Quebec, New Zealand, and beyond.
From the Western perspective, the open invitation of 2015-16 by the leaders of Germany and Sweden, allowing into their countries an estimated 1 million and 100,000 unvetted migrants, respectively, from Syria and elsewhere, turned out badly. Westerners watched helplessly as Middle Easterners arrived by plane, boat, train, bus, car, and foot through the beaches, fields, and railroad stations of Europe. They then witnessed those large numbers bring disease, resist assimilation, impose Islamic laws, engage in crime wave, perpetrate the Cologne taharrush (mass sexual assault), and execute jihadi attacks in Paris and Brussels. They uneasily accepted that their societies turned into quasi-surveillance states.
These problems point to the need radically to rethink what is best for both migrants in distress and Westerners. I shall argue that the former generally should remain within their own cultural zone. That is where they most readily fit in, where they can stay truest to their traditions, best find economic roles, most easily can return home, and least disrupt the host society. Thus, East Asian refugees, asylum seekers, and illegals should be directed to resettle in East Asia, South Asians in South Asia, Middle Easterners in the Middle East, Africans in Africa, Latin Americans in Latin America, and Westerners in the West. This can mean internal migration, as in Syria, or moving to nearby countries. (Daniel Pipes, American Spectator,10/3/2021)
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WHY GERMANY IS THE WEST’S SANEST COUNTRY
Thank G-d for Germany. That is not a sentiment that you heard much during the 20th century. As the second world war drew to a close, Henry Morgenthau, the USTreasury secretary, argued that the only answer to the German question was the destruction of the country’s industrial capacity. François Mauriac, the French writer, welcomed the division of the country, joking “I love Germany so much, I’m glad there are two of them.”
When reunification loomed in 1990, a meeting of chiefly British intellectuals, convened by Margaret Thatcher, discussed the German national character. Her chief foreign policy adviser wrote minutes suggesting these were “in alphabetical order, angst, aggressiveness, assertiveness, bullying, egotism, inferiority complex, sentimentality.”
Thirty years on and these stereotypes about national character have been completely reversed. It is the US and the UK where politics seem increasingly prone to “angst, aggressiveness” and all those other unattractive, supposedly Teutonic, qualities. These days, it is German public life that is characterised by the virtues the British often attribute to themselves — calm, restraint, rationality and compromise.
The recent German election and its aftermath underline the point. It was a close contest, but the losers accepted the results gracefully. Nobody tried to claim that the voting was rigged or that their opponents were “scum” — or represented a mortal danger to the country.
The Social Democrats now look set to lead a German government for the first time since 2005. But a transition of power will not bring about an abrupt rupture in policies or an attempt by the political opposition to paralyse the government, as is happening in the US.
The SPD’s Olaf Scholz, who may become chancellor, ran as a continuity candidate. As my FT colleagues reported, voters saw Scholz “with his quiet demeanour, long experience in government and pragmatic politics, as Merkel’s natural successor.” How very different from the leadership profiles of Donald Trump or Boris Johnson. (part of an article by Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, 10/4/2021)
The German Bundeswehr has commissioned the “fabrication and delivery” of high-resolution maps of Russia – vector maps in military format, according to a report. Germany is part of a cooperation network, wherein 32 countries – grouped around a NATO core – “share photos and maps with one another.” This procurement of militarily applicable maps comes at a time when tensions between the West and Russia continue to escalate. Most recently, the EU threatened new sanctions. According to the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), new investments must be made, not only “in the defense capacities within the NATO and the EU frameworks.” “Change in Russia” must also be promoted through Intensive contacts within the Russian society. At the same time, the US company, Google, and its video platform YouTube has deleted RT DE – the German language edition of the Russian international broadcaster “Russia Today.” This move is akin to measures the DGAP had proposed to accompany a more aggressive German foreign policy. (German Foreign Policy, 10/3/2021)
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DEBT CEILING
There’s a lot of talk about the debt ceiling deadline on October 18th. Interestingly, no other country has a debt ceiling. Why do we?
The debt ceiling standoff is starting to be taken more seriously by markets with only 17 days left (now ten days) to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s deadline for a deal to avoid default. Speaking to the House Financial Services Committee yesterday she said there may be a few extra day’s grace on the deadline, but reiterated a default would be “catastrophic” for the country. The Washington-based Institute of International Finance said in a report that U.S. debt appears to already be losing favor as a haven, while Germany and Japan remain popular. Investors are demanding a premium to hold bills that come due in October and November, with those instruments having noticeably higher yields. (Bloomberg, 10/1/2021)
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TO THE POINT
Norway Cathedral photo Exhibition: “The Palestinians are Jesus. The Jews are criminals who crucify him again. Daily.” (Jihad Watch, 10/1/2021)
Russia holds lavish royal wedding – Russia will celebrate its first royal wedding in a century today when Nicholas II’s purported heir is married in the former Imperial capital of St Petersburg. Grand Duke George Mikhailovich Romanov, a hereditary pretender to the Russian throne, will marry Victoria Romanovna Bettarini amid a “lavish two days of imperial pomp and ceremony” complete with Faberge wedding rings, royal guests and a banquet provided by the catering tycoon known as “Putin’s chef,” reported The Telegraph. (The Week, 10/1/2021)
China is driving a wedge between America and Israel – In the last two decades, there have been more than 460 Chinese investments and mergers and acquisitions in Israel (30 Aug 2021, by Jake Wallis Simons, Spectator magazine).
Remember “let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16)
Staff photo by Wyatt Massey / Pastor Doug Plumlee delivers a sermon at Ridgedale Baptist Church on March 15. The Baptist church was shut down for in-person services.
Vaccination is now the hot topic for decision-making. The argument for widespread vaccination is powerful, but a few million Australians quietly disagree. They carry concerns, often unspoken. Having suffered financially from the lockdowns, they see no sign of comparable financial sacrifices being offered by leading politicians and high-ranking officials, who mainly decide which citizens, industries and occupations should suffer.
Hosts of civil servants are receiving higher salaries and working safely at home while the losers in the private sector are suffering financially and even dipping into their superannuation.
Women, especially those in hospitality and tourism, are losers. The young more than the middle-aged suffer from unemployment, a burden that is more widespread than is measured by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The government’s job subsidies tend to support full-time employees, whereas so many young workers, especially students, are casuals.
Outer regions tend to suffer more than the big cities, while in the heart of those cities the hairdressers, coffee shops, laneway bars and other small businesses suffer more than banks and big mining companies.
Some businesses, of course, have gained more than they merited because the Morrison-Frydenberg formula of subsidies necessarily had to be devised with speed and generosity.
The loss of daily freedom has perhaps surpassed financial losses from the pandemic, though the two forms of damage cannot be compared easily. School-age children, deprived of their friends by the onset of online learning, have suffered emotionally. Mental health is impaired in all age groups. The assault on freedom of religion – inflicted promptly during lockdowns – has probably no parallel in the past 185 years.
This assault is more punitive than that organized by governments during the mask-wearing months of the Spanish flu, when Christians were often allowed to worship in the open air near their chosen church. (“Compared with Spanish flu, we’re doing ok,” Geoffrey Blainey, The Australian, 8/4/2021)
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MUSLIM ASSOCIATION OF CANADA
Muslim Association Of Canada (MAC), After Participating In Summit With Prime Minister Trudeau, Canadian Officials, Schedules Muslim Student Leadership Conference Featuring Muslim Brotherhood Leader Tareq Al-Suwaidan, Who Has Said Gays Should Be Killed, Called For Jihad Against Israel, And Spoke At December 2020 MAC Conference Alongside Islamist Figures Muhammad Al-Dido, Muhammad Al-Nabulsi (MEMRI, 8/6/2021)
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DIEGO GARCIA OCCUPIED ILLEGALLY
The frigate Bayern, which set sail for East Asia yesterday, will soon make a port call at Diego Garcia, an island under occupation, in violation of international law, and serving military purposes. It is the main island of the Chagos Archipelago in the middle of the Indian Ocean and the site of a strategically important US military base. The Chagos Archipelago is an old British colonial possession that had once belonged to Mauritius. It was detached, in violation of international law, during the decolonization of Mauritius, to allow the United States to construct a military base. The population was deported to impoverished regions on Mauritius. In the meantime, several international court rulings have been handed down and a UN General Assembly resolution has been passed on this issue – all concluding that Mauritius has sovereignty over Diego Garcia and calling on the United Kingdom to hand back the illegally occupied Chagos Archipelago. To this day, London and Washington refuse to comply. This does not bother Berlin. (German Foreign Policy, 8/3/2021)
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IRANIAN PROTESTS
Protests began on July 15 in the southwestern Khuzestan Province. The initial focus was a scarcity of water in recent months, which has led to deaths among livestock and consequent impoverishment among farmers in the ethnically diverse province. The lack of water is also leading to a breakdown in electricity provision and frequent blackouts.
But while scarcity of water was the initial trigger, the protests soon began to include more generalized slogans against the ruling Islamist regime. Khuzestan Province, in which Arab-Iranians form the largest community, is a place of high unemployment, poorly served by the central government in terms of services. In the course of a week, the protests spread, with additional, though smaller, demonstrations taking place in the cities of Isfahan, Karaj, Kermanshah and Tabriz. (“Unrest grows in Iran,” Jonathan Spyer, MEF, 7/30/2021)
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WILL LEBANON FALL TO IRAN?
If Lebanon falls to Iran, the Iranians will control an arc of territory from Iran, through Iraq and Syria. This territory is basically the old King of the North, which the Bible says will be restored prior to Christ’s return.
There is growing concern among the Lebanese and other Arabs that Iran is planning to exploit the severe political, economic and financial crisis in Lebanon to complete its takeover of the country.
Iran already has a political and military presence in Lebanon through its terrorist proxy, Hezbollah. The current crisis, however, is likely to facilitate Iran’s mission of adding Lebanon to the list of countries it already occupies: Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
“Iran is already very dangerous without a nuclear bomb. The region is witnessing a state of chaos and agitation by fundamentalist forces, which threaten all Arab countries without exception.” — Mishary Dhayidi, Saudi writer, Al-Arabiya, July 21, 2021
The Arabs appear clearly worried about the perceived apathy of the US and other Western powers towards Iran’s scheme to extend its control to Lebanon. They seem particularly alarmed that Lebanon will meet the same fate as Iraq, Syria and Yemen…. thanks to Iran’s continuous efforts to export terrorism and the “Islamic Revolution” to the Arab countries.
[T]he mullahs in Tehran are doubly dangerous: they aspire not only to develop nuclear weapons, but also to occupy Arab states. (“Will Lebanon fall into the hands of Iran?,” Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone, 7/26/2021)
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HUNGARY’S ORBAN FACES ELECTION
Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s far-right populist prime minister, likes to shock people. It’s part of his political appeal. Orbán has proudly proclaimed that he is an “illiberal” leader,” creating a frenzy in Brussels because Hungary is a member of the European Union.
It’s been over a decade since the 58-year-old, whom some have dubbed the “Trump before Trump,” became prime minister. In that time he has, critics say, hollowed out Hungary’s governing institutions and eroded the state’s democratic characteristics.
But now for the first time since then, Orbán faces a real challenge to his power. Six ideologically-diverse opposition parties have joined forces to unseat him. But even if the opposition bloc wins elections next spring, a hard feat given Orbán’s popular appeal, what would it even mean to “liberalize” Hungary again? (Gzero Signal, 7/29/2021)
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FAMILY FIRST, NZ
George Orwell is traditionally credited with saying this great quote: “The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.” Let me adjust that slightly to my version. “The further a society drifts from biblical truth, the more it will hate those who quote it.” (Family First, NZ, August)
The proposed ‘conversion therapy’ ban will be yet another attack on parents’ rights. A ban would criminalize parents who wish to protect their child from the physical, emotional, and psychological harm caused by gender dysphoria. Shockingly, parents would be criminalized and potentially liable up to five years in jail simply for affirming that their sons are boys and their daughters are girls. The government want to criminalize the discussion and practice of alternatives to hormones, surgery and confusion.
And if a person wanted to align their sexuality with the teachings and values of their particular faith – be it Muslim or Christian, Jewish or Sikh – and sought help to do so from a minister, imam or other faith leader, a ban would make it virtually impossible to access the support they wanted. Furthermore, if they were able to find someone prepared to provide counselling of that kind, they could well cause that person (such as you!) to become implicated in a criminal offence. According to the government bill, consent is not relevant. But the right of self-determination is a founding principle of the mental health profession, and for children, the wider whanau / family is part of this important value and support base. (Family First NZ, August)
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CRITICAL RACE THEORY
Despite widespread acceptance of bi-culturalism and the increasing use of Te Reo Māori, terms like “systemic racism”, “White guilt” and “White privilege” are being enthusiastically embraced by organizations and governments – and now being pushed in our education system. It’s all part of critical theory – a radical and dangerous new way of thinking about human identity and value. But critical theory is divisive. It’s reduces human interaction to the notion of us versus them. This then feeds the very thing it claims to be fighting: racism, prejudice, resentment and self interest. And the traditional values of reconciliation, love, treating others the way you want to be treated, forgiveness and colour-blindness have no place in a world gripped by critical theory. But it’s wrong to teach children to be defined by their race rather than as individuals, as though they are only the color of their skin and that’s all they will ever be. This is confusing to children and creates resentment, tribalism and division in schools. Fighting racism with racism is a double standard. Parents need to check whether this agenda is in their local schools. (Family First NZ, August)
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President Biden’s Middle East policy
The Biden team has attempted to base its Middle East policy on the noble values of human rights and democracy, which are inconsistent with the Arab Middle East.
by Yoram Ettinger: a former ambassador & head of Second Thought: A U.S.-Israel Initiative. (August 8, 2021 / JNS)
The Middle East does not intend to disengage from the United States. America is perceived by rogue Middle East entities as “The Great Satan,” and the main obstacle on their way to achieving their overarching goal: bringing the West into submission. This goal has deep roots, going back to the seventh century C.E.
Isolation is not a realistic option in the increasingly globalized village, where rogue Middle East regimes are engaged in the proliferation of terrorism, non-conventional military technologies and drug trafficking around the globe. Their reach extends all the way to the American continent, impacting U.S. homeland security. . . . Biden and his team assume that Islamic terrorism (e.g., Iran’s ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Hamas, PLO, Houthis) is driven by despair. They ignore the fact that Islamic terrorism has been driven – since the 7th century C.E. – not by despair, but by deeply-rooted, intolerant, fanatic and megalomaniacal anti-Western ideology, irrespective of Western and Israeli policies. (https://www.jns.org/opinion/president-bidens-middle-east-policy/)
A world without an army was “a wonderful utopia,” Dietmar Bartsch, the lead candidate for Germany’s Left Party told an ARD television interviewer recently.
A utopia, however, he also made clear, that for him and his party existed only as fiction. Bartsch made unmistakably clear that despite verbal declarations about peace, the Left Party supports foreign deployments of the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces), the creation of a European army and NATO. (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/08/09/left-a09.html)
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Why did so many world leaders attend the inauguration of Iran’s murderous president? For a regime that makes such noise about how many foreign leaders attend an inauguration, it sure is quiet about how many citizens it has murdered.
(August 8, 2021 / The Jewish Journal) What would you do if you were a senior European Union diplomat who was invited to the inauguration of a man affectionately known as “The Butcher of Tehran”? Yes, I’m kidding about the “affectionately” part, but not about “The Butcher of Tehran.” You don’t earn that nickname (as well as “Ayatollah Massacrist”) among Iranian people unless you’ve overseen the arrest, torture and murder of thousands of dissidents and protestors for more than 30 years. If you’re Enrique Mora, a senior E.U. diplomat, you RSVP “yes” to the swearing-in of newly-elected Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, which was held on Thursday in Tehran. Mora was joined by representatives from over 70 countries who also said “yes.” Specifically, the ceremony was attended by “10 presidents, 20 speakers of parliament, 11 foreign ministers, 10 other ministers, envoys of presidents, vice presidents and parliamentary delegations,” according to a statement by Iranian Parliament spokesman Seyyed Nezam Al-Din Mousavi. For a regime that makes such noise about how many foreign leaders attend an inauguration, it sure is quiet about how many citizens it has murdered. + Noted: thousands murdered.
The new findings update what was previously the earliest destruction layer of Jerusalem – from the Babylonian conquest of 586 BCE. by Brian Blum (8 August 2021, Israel 21c)
Did an ancient earthquake described by the Bible in the Kingdom of Judah some 2,800 years ago reach as far as Jerusalem, the region’s capital? An archeological dig says yes. This could have only one explanation: the eighth century BCE earthquake mentioned in the books of Amos and Zechariah.
Years of mismanagement has left Iran facing “irreversible” water shortages that threaten to trigger conflict across the Middle East and North Africa, an exiled former minister has warned.
Kaveh Madani, a scientist who served as deputy environment minister, told The Times that Iran was “water bankrupt” – when consumption is greater than renewable water availability – as reservoirs, rivers and groundwater begin to run dry.
And the shortages are “being replicated across the region,” says the paper, “with the marshes of southern Iraq starting to dry out again despite restoration efforts, and eastern Syria suffering a significant drought.” (The Week, 7/29/2021)
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TALKING POINTS
“Biden is failing in his first constitutional duty — to defend the United States from foreign invasion. We Americans no longer decide who comes into our national home and whom we shall adopt as new citizens . . . We defend the borders of scores of nations; we cannot, or Biden will not, defend our own.” (“Is America becoming a failed state?” by Pat Buchanan, 8/10/2021)
Not once in this century has the U.S. decisively won one of the wars it launched — in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen or Libya. And the sole superpower status we enjoyed as the 21st century began is gone with the wind.” (PB, 8/10/2021)
Iran ‘working systematically to build serious cyber-attack capabilities’ Revelations about malign plans by Tehran’s leaders serve as the latest confirmation of how seriously the Islamic Republic takes cyber warfare, said Professor Col. (res.) Gabi Siboni, an expert on cyber security. (https://www.jns.org/iran-is-working-systematically-to-build-serious-cyber-attack-capabilities/)
VIEWPOINT Quote of the day, UK — It’s phenomenal to see first-hand the enthusiasm of the British public for the vaccines.” Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi hails the news that 75% of adults have now been double-vaccinated. (The Week, 8/10/2021)
Nigel Farage helped lead the British people to Brexit. He now has a program on a new channel called “GB News,” which is far more even-handed than the BBC. Imaginatively, his program is called “Talking Pints.” Nigel sits at a bar interviewing people. Both participants have a glass of brownish liquid in front of them. It’s well worth a view (and can be seen regularly on YouTube). Although I like the concept, we shall continue to call this segment of the blog “Talking Points.”
FINAL THOUGHT
GOD’S WAITING ROOM
My wife had a birthday at the weekend. A lady friend in Australia called her on the day to wish her a happy birthday. I also talked with her for a few minutes. She mentioned how one old lady she knows described the years after 70 as being in God’s waiting room.
Psalm 90:10, written over 3000 years ago, is a reminder that people normally live about 70 years. “The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor …” Some may be given a few more years, but life only gets harder as we all deal with failing health.
It’s as if we are in God’s waiting room. As in any waiting room situation, we have choices. We can do something profitable while we wait such as reading; or we can waste away the time checking our phones for messages!
In our general life, we can spend time with the grandchildren or waste our days watching television.
You get the idea. Redeem the time. Use it profitably.
Ephesians 5:15-16 tells us to “see then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”
We don’t know how long we will be in the waiting room, but, as we wait patiently, let us use the time well. For we never know when the wait time will be over.
“The greatest tyrannies are always perpetuated in the name of the noblest of causes.” — THOMAS PAINE
America has become a de facto one-party state. Consider the following:
>>The media no longer represents the people. There are many issues that cannot be discussed (race, abortion, LGBTQ issues). Gradually, freedom of the press has died. Almost all papers support the Left. Every TV station does, except for Newsmax and OAN (One America News). Most people are unaware of their existence. Fox News retains some conservative anchors (Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity).
“The aggressive censorship conservatives face was foreseeable. Communities and cultures are built on common values. The culture of the left is no longer compatible with our Constitutional Republic and conservative culture. It was inevitable this day would come.” (Codias, 1/9/2021)
“The only security of all is in a free press.” Thomas Jefferson
>>The Democrat- controlled House has arranged for 25,000 National Guardsmen to protect the Capitol in the days leading up to Joe Biden’s inauguration. This is the most troops Washington DC has seen since the Civil War, over 150 years ago. It’s more than five times the number in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Our democracy seems to have turned from freedom to oppression! Additionally, troops are being screened to ensure they have no sympathies for outgoing President Donald Trump, which risks politicising and dividing the military.
>>Nancy Pelosi addressed the troops yesterday, as if she were Commander-in-Chief.
>>The President has been impeached for a second time. If the trial goes against him, he will not be allowed to run for office again. The Democrats will have effectively ended Trump’s political career. Whatever you may think of Donald Trump, silencing the opposition is a tactic of a one-party state.
“Section 3 of the 14th Amendment says no-one can hold office if they’ve engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States.
And if you’ve been paying close attention, you’ll notice that’s the same phrase used in the impeachment charge that was passed this week.”
“House Democrats want veto power over whom Republicans can nominate. And this is the crowd that does not cease to bray about its devotion to “democracy.”” (Pat Buchanan, 1/14/2021)
>>The Washington Post is, like almost all newspapers, pro-Democrat. Only 19 minutes after Trump’s inauguration four years ago, the paper carried the banner headline:
“Campaign to impeach President Trump has begun.” That’s been the plan for four years.
>>There are calls for the children of conservatives to be sent to re-education camps.
“Prominent leftists are talking of reprogramming Trump supporters. Reprogramming seems to include vilifying Trump staff members to destroy their careers. In some cases, Trump backers could loose banking privileges and other discriminatory actions including depriving them of access to air travel. A now infamous Project Veritas video captured one suggesting the children of Republicans be taken away from their parents and sent to reeducation camps. These, by the way, are the same leftists who accused immigration officials of separating families.” (Laura Ingraham).
>>Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets have banned Trump. (Today’s news says they have lost $51 billion off their share value as people have stopped using them, in support of the president.) Apple and Microsoft have dropped the Parler app which still carries Trump’s messages.
>>Lockdowns throughout the country have shut down businesses, destroying the economy. According to AFP tonight, almost twenty million jobs have been lost since March. One million jobs were lost in the first week of the new year.
>>A policy of the new Biden Administration will encourage illegal aliens and new immigrants to seek citizenship, thereby securing more Democrat votes. It’s estimated that 70% of immigrants vote for the Democrats.
>>Accusations that “white supremacists” were present at the Capitol were untrue, but the accusation has stuck. Race was not a factor in what happened on January 6th.
>>In Michigan, former Republican Governor Rick Snyder is to be tried for “neglect” causing the deaths of nine people during the Flint water crisis.
>>The Michigan legislature has banned guns (open carry) from the legislature.
>>(President Trump) stands accused of incitement, obstruction of justice, “high crimes and misdemeanors,” sedition, and treason.
>> On January 6, Trump even exhorted his supporters to “walk down to the Capitol” and begin “marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” (“Democracy more at risk with no brake on Biden,” Salvatore Babonas, The Australian, 1/14/2021)
>>In the Detroit News January 7th appeared the following: “the difference between the way the police handled Wed’s events with BLM in the summer; a heavier police presence for BLM.” Why was the police presence so small at the Capitol following on from 9/11?
>> “In this day and age of threatened terrorist attacks against vital US institutions, you can be sure that security around Capitol Hill would have long ago been prepared to repel an attack by a highly trained, armed enemy force. And “they” are trying to tell us that a bunch of unarmed hooligans could break into Congress. Do “they” think we are totally stupid?! It had to be an inside job designed to make DJT look bad.” (ARM 1/10/2021)
>>The Democrats are losing support amongst blue-collar workers, African-Americans and Hispanics. This may explain their attempt at establishing a one-party state.
>>Two thirds of Republicans, in a weekend poll, still believe the election was rigged. There has been no serious attempt to look into this.
>>“It is only a slight overstatement to say that, while the mob’s coup against Congress ignominiously failed, big tech’s coup against Trump triumphantly succeeded.” (Niall Ferguson) “Trump is not merely being denied access to the channels he has used throughout his presidency to communicate with voters. He is being excluded from a domain the courts have for some time recognized as a public forum.”
>>US screens troops for riot sympathizers: The US army and secret service are carrying out background checks on National Guard troops in a bid to weed out extremist sympathizers ahead of Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Thousands of part-time soldiers are being sent to Washington D.C. to stand guard as the new president is sworn in next Wednesday. (The Week, 1/14/2021)
>>DW news tonight said: “extremist right-wing groups, supporters of Donald Trump, have called for a civil war in the US.” Such statements will only increase support for the Democrats and take it away from conservatives. There are calls for Texas to secede.
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OF INTEREST
FYI Nancy Pelosi wore the same dress on Wednesday as she wore at Trump’s first impeachment. This was not due to a lack of money to buy a new dress.
Former UKIP and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage decried lockdown restrictions that could see elderly people fined by police for resting on park benches, along with legislation in Parliament that could allow authorities to recruit teenagers as stool-pigeons against their own parents. (1/13/2021 James Tweedie, Sputniknews)
Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, a Muslim, has asked the government to close down places of worship in the UK capital.
Brexit exempts Brits from speeding fines — British drivers will escape most speeding fines in EU nations because the UK’s departure has ended deals governing several motoring offences in the bloc. French officials say that following Brexit, the EU’s cross-border enforcement directive no longer applies, ending arrangements for sharing information about drivers caught on speed cameras. The Times says the news puts British drivers in the “fast lane.” (The Week, 1/13/2021)
Stay focused. We could be in for a rough ride. Remember Matthew 6:33: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.”
(Credit for top cartoon picture goes to Pat Buchanan)
“The Chinese Communist Party “is the biggest and most serious virus of all . . . The CCP represses and manipulates information to strengthen its hold on power. It is time to recognize the threat the Chinese Communist Party poses to all humanity.” — Chen Guangcheng, blind Chinese dissident, now a refugee in the US. (Asia news April 27, 2020)
Bloomberg News is said to censor articles that might anger China and expose Xi’s personal wealth. And the European Union just softened criticism of China in a report on disinformation about the pandemic… It looks as though free thought is more valued among China’s daring dissidents than in many corners of the West.
To paraphrase Leon Trotsky: You may not be interested in China, but China is interested in you. (Gatestone, 5/17/2020)
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EU UNHAPPY WITH CHINA
The Western Balkan states, including Serbia, should publicly acknowledge the EU’s support in combating the Covid-19 pandemic, the EU demands in the final declaration at its Zagreb Western Balkan Summit last Wednesday. The summit had been preceded by harsh criticism of Chinese aid deliveries to Serbia, which have aroused strong resentment in Berlin and Brussels. EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Josep Borrell accused Beijing of waging “a struggle for influence” with its “politics of generosity.” For years, Germany and the EU have been trying to counter the growing influence of other powers in the Southeastern European non-EU countries. This pertains to the Turkish, Russian and Chinese cultural and military policies and their economic activities. The EU dominance over the Western Balkan countries’ economy has only drained these countries of billions of euros and rendered their recovery impossible. This is why they are turning also to China. (German Foreign Policy 5/18/2020)
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UK: Sunak warns of ‘severe recession’ and ‘more hardship’
Rishi Sunak (Britain’s Finance Minister) has forecast that Britain is facing a “severe recession, the likes of which we haven’t seen” and warned that it is “not obvious there will be an immediate bounceback.” Following a sharp rise in unemployment benefit claims, the chancellor told a Lords committee that there is “no doubt there will be more hardship to come.” (The Economist, 5/20/2020)
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WHO INVESTIGATION
Member-states of the World Health Organization unanimously agreed to set up an independent inquiry into the covid-19 pandemic. The “impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation” will look at the WHO’s own role in the crisis. America, in particular, has been critical of the inter-governmental organization. Its boss, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the inquiry would start “at the earliest opportunity.”
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OPPOSITION TO LOCKDOWNS GATHERS PACE
(Direct quote from The Economist) ” IN MORE THAN 30 of America’s 50 state capitals angry crowds have been gathering to protest against stay-at-home orders. Buoyed by tweets from President Donald Trump encouraging them to “liberate” their states, some even compare their elected officials to the Nazis. A few among them toting assault weapons are dressed incongruously in Hawaiian shirts. They might seem almost comical were it not for the fact that, in the fetid corners of the internet, such beachwear is recognized as the uniform of the extreme right.
“The spreading of conspiracy theories is central to the extreme right’s activities. Some claim the virus is a hoax. Others blame the Chinese, the Jews or even Bill Gates. Some claim that the federal government is using the virus as a pretext to confiscate weapons and enforce “medical martial law.” Extremists also spread more familiar conspiracy theories, decrying 5G networks and vaccinations, which help introduce the uninitiated to their ideology.
“A closer look at the far right’s beliefs helps explain why extremists have been energized by America’s new reality.
“The most familiar of these is white supremacy. Its adherents exploit the virus’s geographical origins to drum up racial antipathy towards Chinese people. Anti-semites have been accusing Jews of deliberately spreading plagues ever since the Black Death, and covid-19 gives them a chance to reuse the template. The supremacists thus use fears about “white genocide” to argue for closed borders and eventually a white ethno-state. “Open borders is the virus,” declares one protest sticker placed on road signs.” (The Economist, 5/20/2020)
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DURBAN: CORRUPTION IN FOOD DISTRIBUTION
Hunger and starvation in Durban Allegations are flying thick and fast as some desperate eThekwini residents wait for the delivery of food parcels, one of the brutal consequences of government’s draconian and extended Covid-19 lockdown. (by Des Erasmus, 12 May 2020, Daily Maverick )
[ eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality is a metropolitan municipality created in 2000, that includes the city of Durban, South Africa and surrounding towns. eThekwini is one of the 11 districts of KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. The majority of its 3,442,361 people speak Zulu. It was formed from seven formerly independent local councils and tribal land. ]
Hunger — and more particularly the very real fear of starvation — has roused already elevated suspicions in some of the province’s rural areas, where peering through a curtain at midnight and seeing “food being delivered at that time” has led to allegations of theft and mismanagement of the parcels by councillors. What the lockdown has revealed is that it is ordinary citizens who are stepping up to place food on the plates of the province’s distressed. And allegations about councillors who milk the lockdown to ensure they are able to “buy support” for next year’s local government elections in order to keep their seats. But just how deep and real this problem is, is difficult to uncover. Even the South African Police Services couldn’t provide clarity.
Nevertheless, perceived or real, over the course of the weekend and into Monday, Daily Maverick received several calls from eThekwini residents accusing councillors of distributing food to friends and family. One such call involved the “peering through the window” scenario in Ward 94 of eThekwini Metro, which includes the areas of KwaMakhutha and Ensimbini, just west of the seaside suburb of Amanzimtoti. “The councillor was seen handing out food parcels at about midnight on Saturday to people who were her friends and family. One lady went to collect parcels and was turned away,” a resident, who asked not to be named for fear of repercussions, told Daily Maverick.
In the wake of the most recent US devastating blow launched at Huawei, demands are again being raised in Berlin to exclude the Chinese company from setting up Germany’s 5G networks. Huawei should not have an opportunity in Germany, insists Norbert Röttgen, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the German Bundestag. The government’s current draft for a revised version of the IT security law, in principle, does not exclude the participation of Chinese companies but includes an ambiguous clause (“trustworthiness test”) that could be applied against them. While the discussion is continuing in Berlin, the Trump administration announced that, in the future, chip manufacturers anywhere in the world, using specialized US equipment must obtain a special US government license to supply Huawei. Experts estimate that should this directive be implemented – which would subjugate key sectors of the world’s economy to US control – nearly 90 percent of Huawei sales would be threatened. Subsequently, German companies would also suffer damages. (German Foreign Policy, 5/19/2020)
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WIFE BEATING ADVICE FROM QATARI OFFICIAL
Dr. Ahmad Al-Farjabi, a shari’a expert from the Qatari Ministry of Religious Endowments, said in a May 6, 2020 interview on Al-Jazeera Network (Qatar) that Muslims are not the only people who beat their wives and that when a man suspects his wife might turn out to be rebellious, he should take the measures prescribed by the Quran, the third of which is beating his wife. Dr. Al-Farjabi added that even Western psychologists have said that wife-beating is “inevitable” for women who had been beaten while they were growing up and for women who have no respect for their husbands. He said that these kinds of women must be “subdued by muscles,” and that some kinds of women “may be reformed by beating.” Al-Farjabi also said that he has even heard from women at his lectures that it is preferable to beat one’s wife than to allow her to ruin the home and lose her children. (MEMRI 5/18/2020)
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NUREMBERG CODE FORBIDS VACCINES WITHOUT CONSENT
The Nuremberg Code (1947) is a set of research ethics and principles for human experimentation created as a result of the Nuremberg trials at the end of the Second World War, when the notorious doctor’s experiments where supposed to have come to an end.
It established a set of guiding principles for the Right of the patient to be informed of their medical treatment options and to give their consent before any medical treatment could be performed.
It feels now more than ever that the mass experimentation on humanity is under way once more with enforced vaccines looking an inevitable thing for anyone that wants to do anything. But know your rights and be better prepared.
The Nuremberg Code is one of the most influential documents in the history of clinical research
Code 6 also states: The risks should never exceed the benefits. According to Article 6 of the Unesco 2005 statement on Bioethics and Human Rights.
Article 6, section 1: Any preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic medical interventions is only to be carried out with the prior, free and informed consent of the person concerned, based on adequate information. The consent should, where appropriate, be expressed and may be withdrawn by the person concerned at any time and for any reason WITHOUT DISADVANTAGE or prejudice. (caps mine)
Alan Dershowitz: State has right to ‘plunge a needle into your arm’ Contends Constitution grants government power to forcibly vaccinate individuals.
Harvard Law School emeritus professor Alan Dershowitz claimed in an interview that the government has a constitutional right under the 10th Amendment to forcibly vaccinate a citizen to curb the spread of a contagious disease. “Let me put it very clearly, you have no constitutional right to endanger the public and spread the disease, even if you disagree. You have no right not to be vaccinated, you have no right not to wear a mask, you have no right to open up your business,” he said. The interviewer, Jason Goodman, interjected, asking if the famed constitutional scholar was saying that if the government decides “you have to be vaccinated, we have to be vaccinated.” “Absolutely,” Dershowitz replied. “And if you refuse to be vaccinated, the state has the power to literally take you to a doctor’s office and plunge a needle into your arm.”
BEHIND THE SCENES OF FRANCO-GERMAN RECOVERY FUND
by Katya Adler, BBC Europe editor, 19 May 2020
After a shambolic, acrimonious display at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, the EU’s main players are now on a mission to demonstrate that the European dream is not dead or dying. To prove that solidarity, common values and a unity of purpose are, in fact, the order of the day.
The German and French leaders were notably absent: the relationship between them tetchy – with France pushing for the EU’s richer countries (including Germany and excluding itself) to take on and share the coronavirus-related debt of the countries of the south. But what did we see on Monday? Hey presto: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron jointly proposing a recovery fund to help the weakest EU economies get out of a post-covid slump to the tune of €500bn ($545bn; £448bn). In EU political terms this is huge. Chancellor Merkel has conceded a lot. She openly agreed with the French that any money from this fund, allocated to a needy EU country should be a grant, not a loan. Importantly this means not increasing the debts of economies already weak before the pandemic and financially excruciating lockdown, such as those in southern but also central and eastern Europe. President Macron gave ground too. He’d wanted a huge fund of a trillion or more euros. But a trillion euros of grants was probably too much for Mrs. Merkel to swallow on behalf of fellow German taxpayers. The resulting compromise: win-win for the two leaders. They hope. . . . I’d say the battle over the EU recovery fund is only just beginning.
Crisis in Europe: von der Leyen’s audacious bid for new powers Commission president must bridge bitter divides over EU plan to rebuild the economy
by Sam Fleming, Jim Brunsden and Michael Peel in Brussels (Financial Times, 18 May 2020)
Ursula von der Leyen delivered a stark message to the EU’s commissioners on Thursday evening at their first in-person meeting for many weeks. She told her socially distanced colleagues that they had an opportunity to forge a viable reconstruction plan for a European economy ravaged by the coronavirus crisis. But they had precious little time at their disposal and only one shot to get it right. One important detail was tellingly absent from the commission president’s private presentation in a windowless room in Brussels’ Berlaymont building: the hugely divisive question of the size of the recovery fund which she will shortly propose.
Ms. von der Leyen is planning an audacious bid for new powers as she seeks to put her institution at the centre of efforts to revive the European economy, asking member states for unprecedented latitude to raise funds in the markets. But the former German defense minister faces the central test of her short presidency as she seeks to bridge bitter splits within the EU over the plan.
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FRANCE: MACRON LOSES MAJORITY
Seven Members leave the La République en Marche group. The French President Macron’s party thus has 288 seats – one less than the majority.(May 19, 2020, Der Spiegel)
The party of French President Emmanuel Macron loses its majority in parliament. Seven MEPs from La République en Marche (LREM) left the group and joined the Ecologie Démocratie Solidarité (Ecology, Democracy, Solidarity) group that was founded on Tuesday.
Macron’s party LREM now has only 288 votes in the people’s representation. A majority require 289 seats. When Macron took office in 2017, LREM had 314 MPs. There’s Dissatisfaction with Macron’s business-friendly policies.
BEE POPULATIONS ARE IN DECLINE ALL OVER THE WORLD = To bee or not to bee: International Bee Day highlights plight of pollinators 90% of world’s wild flowering plant species depend, entirely, or at least partly, on animal pollination, along with over 75% of world’s food crops, 35% of agricultural land.
Bees have gotten a bad press — the truth is that they rarely sting. What they do do is sustainably pollinate a third of the plants needed for a stable, healthy, human diet. There is no alternative to bees and no logic to seeking an alternative.
In the US, beekeepers lost an estimated 40.7% of their managed honey bee colonies between April 2018 and April 2019, according to the most recent loss and management report issued by the Bee Informed Partnership: https://beeinformed.org/
1927 BOMB REMAINS WORST SCHOOL ATTACK IN US HISTORY
May 18th, 1927, 45 people including 38 children were killed in Bath Township, during the deadliest school attack in U.S. History.
“He asked himself I don’t know why I lived.” said Wendy Marrison, granddaughter of a survivor. Wendy Marrison’s Grandpa, Dean was a student at Bath Consolidated School and was only 11 years old when it happened.
93 years ago, Andrew Keyhoe was a school board member at the time. Police say he hid nearly 500 pounds of dynamite throughout the school, something he planned for months.
“It was the last day before summer break and as the kids were going into school Mr. Keyhoe was there greeting him. He actually said to the kids this is your last day, my Grandpa thought that’s a nice greeting, later on, he realized that was a warning.” said Wendy Marrison.
At 8:45 A.M., hours before their summer vacation was set to begin.
The explosion happened.
“He was on the first floor and he got buried under all this rubble. He was the very last one to be pulled out. When they pulled him they couldn’t find a pulse, so in his words “I was put in the dead pile.” One of his neighbors saw his toe move and they all started yelling he’s alive he’s alive!” Marrison added.
Dean did survive the attack and went on to live a good life. He passed away in 2006 at the age of 92. Wendy wasn’t alive when it all happened, but she wants to make sure that people never forget.
“We need to honor the ones who survived and the ones who didn’t.” Marrison said. (WLNS 6, Bath Township, Lansing, Michigan)
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Danish Bible that removed Israel ‘not antisemitic’ argues columnist The Danish Bible society took too many liberties with the translation but, Mosaic Magazine’s Philologos argued, was not antisemitic in its motives.
Far from being antisemitic, a new Christian Bible translation which omits or replaces the word “Israel” in many places within the text affirms the link between Israel and the Jewish people, a columnist for Mosaic Magazine has argued.
The translation, titled Bible 2020, released earlier this year by the Danish Bible Society, came under scrutiny toward the end of April when readers noted that numerous references to “Israel” had been replaced or removed. In some places the word had been replaced with “the Jews,” “the Jewish people,” or even “the people,” whereas in others the translation was made more universal, such as the re-rendering of Psalm 121:4 from “He who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps,” to “He who takes care of us will not fall asleep, no he is not sleeping.”
According to analysis by the Bible Society in Israel, the word “Israel” appears only twice in the Bible 2020 version of New Testament rather than the more than 60 times it appears in the Greek from which it was originally translated. The Old Testament has been less altered, but while the word appears 2,521 times in the Greek, it has been rendered as such 2,316 times in the Danish translation, a reduction of around 9%.
Defending their translation, the Danish Bible society said in a statement: “In The New Testament the word ‘Israel’ has been translated into ‘the Jewish people,’ ‘the Jews,’ or ‘the people’ because when the Greek text uses the word ‘Israel’ it is referring to a people with whom God has a special relationship – Jacob’s descendants. However, for the secular reader, who does not know the Bible well, ‘Israel’ could be referring only to a country. Therefore the word ‘Israel’ in the Greek text has been translated in other ways, so that the reader understands it is referring to the Jewish people.”
However, many were unconvinced.
The Jerusalem Post columnist Liat Collins wrote of the translation: “Instead of making sure that readers understand the connection between Israel, the Jews and the Land of Israel of the Bible, they preferred to make an artificial separation.
“Taking a charitable approach, it’s possible to say that the Danish Bible translators did not see their changes as a political act, more an act of political correctness – trying to include all. But clearly something was lost in translation, as is evident to someone who reads the Bible in the original Hebrew. As B’nai Brith International tweeted: “… this surreal revision causes confusion and worse: whitewashing of history, identity, and sacred scripture.””
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TO THE POINT
Dozens of companies around the world are working on vaccines. Experts say the world will need more than one, because demand will outstrip the production capacity of any single manufacturer. Official remarks: President Trump said he had been taking hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug that experts have warned could cause dangerous heart rhythm abnormalities in coronavirus patients, as a preventive measure. He said he had no symptoms of Covid-19. (NY Times).
Aussies subservient to Chinese — AUSTRALIA lacks courage to appropriately deal with China in the wake of the Coronavirus “cover-up” warns Liberal Party senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells. Addressing parliament this week the NSW-based senator said it was critical for Australia to plan for reparations and to “decouple” from China. (Politico, 5/20/2020)
It is understood that due to his own experience with the coronavirus, the British PM believes ending obesity will help Britain in its fight against Covid-19 – a battle that will require blood, toil, tears and sweat. And also, knowing Johnson, bicycles. (The Week, 5/15/2020) Boris Johnson is an impassioned fan of wartime prime minister Winston Churchill. But his own war, as it turns out, will not be waged against Nazis but against fat.
“Even without laptops and swimming pools, and on a fraction of what government schools spend today, Americans were a surprisingly learned people in our first hundred years.” (“The Myth that Americans were poorly educated before mass government schooling,” Lawrence W. Reed, The Epoch Times, 5/14/2020).
Headline in Lansing State Journal: “Mid-Michigan’s catastrophic flooding adds to state’s pandemic woes” (5/21/2020). Michigan is the third worst hit state from the coronavirus.
CAR BUMPER STICKER: My car gets three weeks to the gallon!
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AFTER THOUGHT
There have been more articles warning about a “second” civil war.
By my calculations, it would be the third civil war. The Revolutionary War was also a civil war. As John Adams wrote, the country was divided three ways, those Loyal to the Crown, those rebelling and those who couldn’t spell Crown!
Not counting this as a civil war overlooks a reality in American history, which is still pertinent today, in the time of corona.
The country is divided.
A Canadian Member of Parliament summed it up quite well a few years ago. In explaining the difference between the US & Canada, he said, in Canada they have four different parties who all have a different approach to any problem. The Canadians discuss the problem until consensus is reached. In the US, the two parties take opposing positions and head for the barricades.
Perhaps it’s something in the DNA of Americans. Or something in our breakfast cereals.
The fact is that we are divided again – on a virus of all things! There are those who believe everything the government tells us; and those who reject everything.
In this sense, it resembles the first civil war (1775-83). Then, on the one side you had people who were against authority and on the other those who upheld authority.
Then as now.
It would be ridiculous to have a civil war over a virus, but it’s just one more issue that continues to divide the country.
As Abraham Lincoln said prior to the War Between the States, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” He was quoting from Mark 3:25.
MR
"Once in a while you will stumble upon the truth but most of us manage to pick ourselves up and hurry along as if nothing had happened." — Sir Winston Churchill
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