DOLLAR’S LONG TERM PROSPECTS

What are the attributes of a global reserve currency? It must be stable, it must be underpinned by a large and strong economy, it must be freely convertible, and it must be used widely.

Americans should not remain overconfident. The only reason the greenback is still the world’s reserve currency is because there is no practical alternative. China and Russia, however, are busy trying to figure out how to engineer a replacement.  (Gatestone, 8/10/2022)

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RACISM IN HAMTRAMCK

In January, the city of Hamtramck, Michigan, became the first municipality in the United States to be governed entirely by Muslim Americans. Mayor Amer Ghalib was sworn into office with an all-Muslim city council on January 2, after promising to represent the entire community, “no matter your faith, your background, who you love, or your political views.”

Yet, Hamtramck’s new mayor does not live up to his inclusive pledge. Ghalib’s Facebook account includes deeply racist, anti-black statements. He viciously mocked black justice demonstrations and endorsed a comment that referred to African Americans as “animal” and “inhuman.”

Alarmingly, Ghalib’s social media history even appears to include an admission of serious voter fraud.  (7/7/2022 MEF)

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IRELAND RETHINKING NEUTRALITY

Ireland is to significantly expand its participation in EU military co-operation projects, including in the areas of cybersecurity and special forces training.

Although a member of the Permanent Structured Co-operation (Pesco) initiative since 2017, Ireland has played a minimal role in the project which has been characterised in some political quarters as a prelude to an EU army. Ireland is to significantly expand its participation in EU military co-operation projects, including in the areas of cybersecurity and special forces training.

The Government views it as a way of increasing interoperability between Irish and EU militaries in support of the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy, which it says is vital for future participation in peacekeeping operations.  (Conor Gallagher, Irish Times, 7/12/2022)

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GERMANY CALLS FOR MASSIVE REARMAMENT

The EU should play a “geopolitical role” and therefore “close ranks” and step up its militarization, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz demands in an op-ed published in the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung. He promises “concrete proposals” in the next few months and is already demanding the abolition of the right to veto on foreign policy issues, which enables smaller states to protect their vital interests against the pressure of the powerful member states. A similar view was recently expressed by SPD Chair Lars Klingbeil. “After nearly 80 years” of alleged “restraint,” Germany should claim “the role of a leading power,” the SPD-Chair demanded. This would “require tough decisions by Berlin.” Klingbeil also called for massive rearmament of the Bundeswehr. Scholz and Klingbeil are worried because the developing and emerging countries are refusing, to a growing extent, to follow the old West and are pursuing their own independent policy. The call to engage in “geopolitical” activities in the future comes at a time of rapidly growing poverty in the EU. (German Foreign Policy, 7/20/2022)

Putin’s plan to hold Germany to ransom by Wolfgang Münchau, The Spectator, 2 July 2022

Russia has a long history of using the cold to defeat Europe.  The winter of 1812 arrested Napoleon’s special military operation.  Hitler’s troops hit the deep-freeze outside the gates of Moscow in December 1941. Now Vladimir Putin has the option to turn off the gas sent to Europe – a strategy against which Germany appears to have no defence.  (The Spectator, 7/2/2022)

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MUSLIM ADVANCE IN US

A Turkish-backed coalition of the nation’s most prominent Sunni Islamist organizations converged on Capitol Hill for the 7th annual National Muslim Advocacy Day in mid-June. The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) enjoyed logistical support from the Turkish government as more than 300 delegates toured Congressional offices to lobby a package of radical legislative proposals.

Since its inaugural Muslim lobby day in 2015, USCMO regularly hails itself as the uncontested representative of a Muslim American voting bloc — one that is united by concerns that affect “all Americans.” However, just three days after this year’s event, which took place on June 13-14, USCMO Secretary-General Ousama Jammal struck a decidedly different tone, describing his experience at the lobby day in a fiery Friday sermon at the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, Illinois.

“This is our battle. This is our jihad, our weapon is our vote,” Jammal said. “This is what we are going to fight with.” (Benjamin Baird, MEF, 7/17/2022)

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INCREASED MILITARY SPENDING

In the days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a host of countries announced momentous hikes in military spending. Canada and the United States both released plans for new military expenditures. So did Australia. So far, 29 European states have pledged more than a combined $209 billion in new defense funding – a figure that will almost certainly rise. The European Commission has declared that “investments will be needed to replenish the depleted stocks of military equipment,” and Josep Borrell, the EU’s top foreign policy official, has called for the bloc “to spend together, more, and better” on its armed forces.  (Foreign Affairs, July 2022)

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MESSAGE FROM PRO-AMERICAN SPECTATOR WRITER

It isn’t much fun being American right now. Your cities are sinking into criminality, your sidewalks are full of drug addicts, your education system is self-harming, you are the fattest big country on earth, your health service is a cruel disaster, your towns are burned by race riots, you are shooting your own children in schools, your military is in retreat around the world, you are being supplanted as the number one nation by China, you are returning to medieval laws over abortion, your life expectancy is actually shrinking, and you recently suffered an attempted coup.

It’s not a pretty list. It is, indeed, a horrible list. America is in stark decline and its people are in anguish, so they lash out, and comfort themselves, by saying ‘look, it’s even worse over there’. And, as psychologists know, when someone lashes out, it’s always the close friends and family that get hurt. Not the strangers. America is not attacking Indonesia or Japan or Brazil. It is attacking the mother country. Britain. This is Oedipal.

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SALMAN RUSHDIE

I remember checking out his book The Satanic Verses out of my library.  I got to page 2 and was deeply offended.  This is what led to the fatwa against Rushdie and to the attempted assassination last week.  Rushdie’s best book is Midnight’s Children, set in India.   This week marks the 75^th anniversary of India’s independence.   It’s a perfect time to read the first paragraph again, one of the best intros to any novel.

“I was born in the city of Bombay… once upon a time.  No, that won’t do, there’s no getting away from the date:  I was born in Doctor Narlikar’s Nursing home on August 15^th, 1947.  And the time?  The time matters, too.  Well then: at night.  No, it’s important to be more…  On the stroke of midnight, as a matter of fact.  Clock-hands joined palms in respectful greeting as I came.  Oh, spell it out, spell it out: at the precise instant of India’s arrival at independence, I tumbled forth into the world.  There were gasps.  And outside the window, fireworks and crowds.”

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TO THE POINT

• Asian markets and Wall Street both climbed after the latest US inflation data came in slightly below estimates and boosted investor hopes. US headline consumer prices rose 8.5% in July compared to the same period a year earlier, just shy of economists’ expectations of 8.7%. The data also showed no month-on-month inflation from June to July. The Financial Times said the reprieve has “bolstered confidence.”  (The Week, 8/11/2022)

• “In Britain, everything is policed except crime.”  (Mark Steyn, GB News, 8/2/2022)

• The Royal Navy is planning to relinquish its role of dealing with migrants crossing illegally to the UK on 31 January next year, said The Telegraph. Just months after Boris Johnson brought in the first Navy vessels to patrol the Channel, government sources said the Navy is planning to hand back control to the Border Force. The news comes after MPs complained that policing the Channel had turned the Navy into a “super taxi service” for migrants. The next PM will be presented with a dilemma over whether to overrule military advisers.  (The Week, 7/16/2022)

• “For a nation, a country, a people, a democracy to endure, there needs be a broad consensus of belief, culture, custom and politics…  We are a country whose people have a diminishing confidence in almost all of its institutions, from big business to the churches, universities and media.”  (Pat Buchanan, 7/16/2022)

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FINAL THOUGHT

I was talking to somebody recently who desperately wanted to confirm his conservative credentials to me.    He said that he watched Fox News for three hours every evening!  I can’t think of anything worse to waste an evening.   At a troubled time like this, we need something uplifting.  We do not need to immerse ourselves in the world’s politics.

Music helps.   In my case classical music, even a bit of opera, helps me relax.   You can substitute whatever is to your taste.  

Philippians 4:8 is sound advice during these difficult days:

^“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”

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POLAND’S HOLOCAUST DENIAL

Bible prophecy is focused on the Middle East and Europe.   There’s a lot happening in the latter right now, as the following news items show.   Poland’s holocaust denial is likely to be followed by other European countries given time, as a new generation takes over and does not want to be blamed for the sins of their fathers.  

“Watch therefore and pray always.” (Luke 21:36)

 

A few years ago, I visited Auschwitz and Krakow in Poland.   I remember asking the tour guide about Polish involvement in the Holocaust.  He admitted that many Poles had aided the Nazis in rounding up the Jews and worked in the camps, helping the Nazis in killing Jews.

The upper house of the Polish parliament has now made it illegal to say such things.  Revisionist history now says that Poles played no role in the Holocaust.  Note the following from the Wall Street Journal:

“Poland’s parliament passed a libel bill imposing jail sentences for accusing the Polish population for collaborating in the Holocaust or other war crimes, sparking concerns from Israel and the United States that a close ally was limiting free expression and flirting with anti-Semitism.

“American and Israeli diplomats condemned the legislation, passed by the upper house of the country’s legislature on Thursday which would set up to three year’s imprisonment for blaming the wartime murder of roughly six million Jews on the Polish state or people.”   (“Poland pushes controversial libel law,” Wall St Journal, 2/2/18)

Under the new legislation, it will become illegal to write or talk about ‘Polish death camps.’

In Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, Alan M. Dershowitz of Harvard University, wrote the article:   “Poland seeks to censor history.”   Here’s a paragraph from the article:

“True, the Germans built Auschwitz and other death camps on Polish soil.   But the Germans could not have murdered the Polish Jews, and millions of other Europeans imported to death camps in Poland, without the active assistance of many Poles in identifying and rounding up victims.   This complicity was incited by generations of anti-Semitic church sermons.   Poles also murdered Jews during and after the German occupation – including in the Jedwabne pogrom in July 1941 and in Kielce in July 1946.”

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Merkel warns of rising anti-Semitism on Holocaust remembrance day  (AFP / 27 January 2018)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned of rising anti-Semitism in her country on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, calling the need to protect Jewish buildings “shameful.”   “It is inconceivable and shameful that no Jewish institution can exist without police protection, whether it is a school, a kindergarten or a synagogue,” she said.    The chancellor also reaffirmed her support of creating the position of anti-Semitism commissioner in the next German government, if her party can finalize tortuous negotiations to forge a coalition.  The commissioner would be appointed to counter growing hate speech against Jews and Israel in German from both its home-grown far-right and some recent migrants in the Muslim community.

https://www.thelocal.de/20180127/merkel-warns-of-rising-anti-semitism-on-holocaust-day

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‘Verbal attacks have become part of everyday Jewish life in Germany’

The head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany argued in an interview that much more educational work needs to be done in schools to combat anti-Semitism.  (25 January 2018 / The Local Germany)

Dr. Josef Schuster, head of the Central Council of Jews, spoke with the founder of the initiative Faces of Democracy, Sven Lilienström, about the importance of German democracy,   Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and modern anti-Semitism in Germany.   Surveys have shown for decades that about 20 to 25 percent of the population have anti-Jewish resentment.   However, these attitudes have been articulated more openly for some time now.   The internet plays a major role here.   In the social networks we find a verbal lack of inhibition which is dangerous, especially on the far-right of the political spectrum. Therefore, it is good that the Network Enforcement Act now provides an instrument to better prevent “hate speech.”

Unfortunately, however, an anti-Israeli attitude is also spreading in society.   It is then no longer a matter of factual criticism of Israel, but Israel’s right to exist is called into question, or Jews in general are held liable for the policies of the Israeli government.   That’s anti-Semitism.

https://www.thelocal.de/20180125/verbal-attacks-have-become-part-of-everyday-jewish-life-in-germany

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Germany’s AfD is ‘destructive power,’ Jewish leader warns

The ex-president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, says the party Alternative for Germany endangers democracy.

 It could soon become the biggest opposition party in the German parliament.

 

©27 Jan 2018 Deutsche Welle

 

The former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, has expressed her concern at the fact that the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has entered the German Bundestag. “It pains me that a party that tolerates not just historical misrepresentation and anti-Semitism but also racism, far-right extremism and populist nationalism in its ranks was able to become the third-strongest in Germany,” Knobloch told the Passauer Neue Presse in an interview published on Saturday for International Holocaust Remembrance Day. “Here, an anti-modern, anti-democratic and anti-liberal destructive power is at work that challenges the prevailing collective consensus” formed on the basis of the lessons of history, Knobloch said. Knobloch also warned of what she described as a “very strong and very aggressive” form of anti-Semitism present among Muslims living in Germany and called on Muslim associations and institutions to combat radical elements in their own communities. (http://www.dw.com/) 

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Son of Nazi leader’s warning about Germany — HARDtalk interviews Niklas Frank, son of Hans Frank, brutal Nazi Governor of Poland executed for war crimes 

Germany could return to authoritarianism if the economic conditions were to seriously worsen in the country, the son of Hans Frank the governor general of Nazi occupied Poland during World War Two, has told BBC Hardtalk.   “As long as our economy is great, and as long as we make money everything is very democratic,” said Niklas Frank, but “if we have five to 10 years heavy economic problems the swamp is a lake, and is a sea and will swallow again, everything,” he added.

Niklas Frank said he “despises” his father for the crimes he committed while he was governor-general of Poland from 1939 to 1945, and tours Germany giving speeches about his father and the legacy of the Nazi era.  Hans Frank was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials and executed in 1946.  (Released:  25 April 2017)

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Germany’s push for EU army:   Merkel developing networks with EU members for military union

Germany has been pushing for greater military co-operation amongst European Union member states, setting up a network between the Bundeswehr and other Brussels partners.  (29 Dec 2017 * Express UK)

German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen has been working on establishing the groundwork for an European Union army, in particular developing a network of co-operation between troops from Germany and others from countries that are part of Pesco – Permanent Structured Co-operation.  The bloc comprises 25 EU countries with only Denmark, Malta and the UK remaining outside. The move largely comprises of co-operation in training the troops, with the Bundeswehr training a number of soldiers from various EU countries and similarly,   German troops visit their counterparts.  But the plan does not just comprise the army but also the navy and air force.   The aim is deeper European integration in defence, which could already be realised ahead of the aims of Pesco.   The German Ministry of Defence has said it is open to the creation of a single EU academy for its military elite but there has been no firm commitment to such a project due to concerns that Germany could end up paying the bulk of the cost to train soldiers from around the bloc. . . .   The move by Ms. von der Leyen comes after Brussels announced EU military cooperation is a now a “tangible reality” after signing off a huge new project . . .   The European Defence Fund has received its first grant from the bloc for a €1million research programme called Pythia.   Named after the Priestess of Ancient Delphi, Pythia will see countries including France and Italy join forces to research cutting-edge military technology.   The UK also forms part of the programme, despite leaving the bloc in 2019, alongside Bulgaria, Poland and Romania.   A further €90million will be dished out from the EU budget in the next two years as Brussels chiefs look to strengthen military ties across the bloc.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/897773/EU-army-Germany-Bundeswehr-military-co-operation-training-Merkel-Macron

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Austrian right-wing Chancellor Sebastian Kurz welcomes Hungary’s Orban, says tensions have grown in the EU since the migrant crisis.  (AFP•January 30, 2018)

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said Tuesday that he aimed to ease east-west tensions within the European Union, as his new right-wing government welcomed Hungary’s incendiary Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Vienna.   “In particular since the start of the migrant crisis (in 2015) tensions have grown in the European Union,” Kurz told a joint news conference with Orban in the Austrian capital. “Our great aim in Austria is to be a bridge-builder in this respect between the Visegrad states and the countries in western Europe,” the 31-year-old conservative said.

. . .  A rift has emerged in recent years between Brussels and the Visegrad group of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia — and in particular with Warsaw and Budapest.   A sweeping revamp of state institutions by the nationalist governments in both countries have raised worries about the rule of law, judicial independence and media freedom.   Both have been the subject of legal action by the European Commission and they have refused to take part in a scheme to share out migrants around the 28-nation bloc.

. . .  Orban has called immigration the “Trojan Horse of terrorism” and earlier this month called migrants “Muslim invaders” of a Christian Europe.   “The biggest danger today to the hopeful future of central Europe is migration of peoples,” Orban told the news conference with Kurz on Tuesday.   “When I say that the future needs to be protected I mean that we have a culture, a Christian culture . . .   We have a way of life, and we want to protect this way of life,” Orban said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/austrian-wing-govt-welcomes-hungarys-orban-162849205.html

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MIDEAST

“215 million Christians experience high levels of persecution” around the world, according to Open Doors, a human rights organization.   On its recently released World Watch List 2018, which ranks the world’s 50 worst nations wherein to be Christian, 3,066 Christians were killed, 1,252 abducted, and 1,020 raped or sexually harassed on account of their faith; and 793 churches were attacked or destroyed.

The Islamic world had the lion’s share of this persecution; 38 of the 50 worst nations are Muslim-majority.   The report further cites “Islamic oppression” behind the “extreme persecution” that prevails in eight of the 10 worst nations.   In short, the overwhelming majority of persecution that these 215 million Christians experience around the world — especially the worst forms, such as rape and murder — occurs at the hands of Muslims.”  (215 million Christians persecuted – mostly by Muslims,” Raymond Ibrahim, MEF, 1/21)

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REAL PROBLEM WITH MIDEAST PEACE TALKS

The root cause of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has not been an Israeli refusal to concede, or an American unwillingness to bend: it has been the ongoing Palestinian rejection of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people.   (E.J. Kimball, The Daily Caller, Middle East Forum, 2/2)

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SYRIA

“Idlib province is home to a wide range of groups opposed to President Bashar al-Assad.   His efforts to crush rebels there come after the government successfully reasserted control over large parts of the country, thanks to firepower from the regime’s Russian and Iranian allies.   But the offensive on Idlib is moving into risky territory, with foreign powers maneuvering in proximity to each other as alliances that used to fight Islamic State fray.”   (“Syrian Offensive strains foreign powers”, WSJ, 2/5/18).

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HOLOCAUST DENIAL — 2

In a TV interview, Egyptian historian and Egyptologist Bassam El Shammaa downplayed the Holocaust, saying that the figure of six million Jews killed was “disputed among historians” and that “at the time, there weren’t six million Jews in the world.”   “How come nobody talks about the ‘counter Holocaust’? he asked, claiming that after Hitler’s defeat, “the Jews in Europe captured the Germans, put them in camps, and started to kill them.”   The interview aired on the Egyptian Mehwar TV channel on December 17, 2017.   (MEMRI)

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DEMOGRAPHICS

All that matters is immigration…

Republicans who treat immigration as a backburner issue should be required to run on the issues they consider more important — in California.   See how your arguments fare in a state that’s already been transformed by immigration.   That’s your new country.  (Steynonline)

How stupid do you have to be to carry on about taxes, defense spending, ISIS, abortion or the Ten Commandments while intentionally losing on the one issue that will determine the outcome of all these other issues?   Too stupid to be of any real help.   (Ann Coulter, January 2018)

• In Germany, 47% of Muslims believe Sharia is more important than German law.   In Sweden, 52% of Muslims believe that Sharia is more important than Swedish law.
• The studies are supported by European intelligence reports. In Germany, intelligence agencies warned in the early fall of 2015 that, “We are importing Islamic extremism, Arab anti-Semitism, national and ethnic conflicts of other peoples, as well as a different understanding of society and law.”
• A recent Belgian study, in which 4,734 Belgians were polled, showed that two-thirds of Belgians feel that their nation is being “increasingly invaded.”

(Europe: Making Islam Great Again. Gatestone 2/3)

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Special Dispatch No. 7305

Former Basij Commander Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi:  ‘The European Continent Is Gradually Giving Way To The Asiatic And African Genes; In The Next Century, They’ll Have To Look For The European Gene In Museums’

THE COST OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION                                                          By Ruthie Blum, Gatestone 2/5/18

• “At the federal, state, and local levels, taxpayers shell out approximately $134.9 billion to cover the costs incurred by the presence of more than 12.5 million illegal aliens, and about 4.2 million citizen children of illegal aliens.” — Matt O’Brien and Spencer Raley
• It is also rather more than the single payment of $25 billion that it will cost to build a wall — five and a half times more, and every year.
• “Undocumented immigrants are at least 142% more likely to be convicted of a crime than other Arizonans.   They also tend to commit more serious crimes. . . . ” — John R. Lott.
• In 2015, included in the DEA’s drug-threat assessment was the fact that drug overdoses killed more people in the United States than car accidents or guns. Many of these drugs [were] smuggled in large volumes by drug cartels.”

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An Italian man went on a shooting spree in the central town of Macerata, wounding six African immigrants before getting out of his car and doing the fascist salute, police said.

“The 28-year-old suspect drove through Macerata on Saturday, shooting in an area where police had arrested a Nigerian man suspected of killing an 18-year-old Italian woman, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry said.” (WSJ, 3/5)

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BERLUSCONI WANTS TO DEPORT 600,000 IMMIGRANTS

Silvio Berlusconi has pledged to deport 600,000 illegal immigrants from Italy should his centre-right coalition enter government after elections on 4 March, as tensions simmer over the shooting of six Africans by a far-right extremist on Saturday.

The 81-year-old rightwing former prime minister said in a TV interview that immigration was a “social bomb ready to explode in Italy” and that the shooting in Macerata posed a security problem.

“Immigration has become an urgent question, because after years with a leftwing government, there are 600,000 migrants who don’t have the right to stay,” said Berlusconi.   “We consider it to be an absolute priority to regain control over the situation.”

Berlusconi’s Forza Italia has forged an alliance with two far-right parties, the Northern League and the smaller Brothers of Italy, for the elections.   (The Guardian, 2/5)