“MY FATHER WILL BEHEAD YOU”

Pierre Mendès France School in Saumur

In France, a low-intensity war is bubbling, aimed at radicalizing education.

At the Pierre Mendès France School in Saumur, a student told his teacher, “My father will behead you.”  It has become impossible even to make a precise list of these incidents. They occur every day in France.

“Faced with Islamist intimidation, what should the free world do?” — Title of Robert Redeker’s column in Le Figaro in 2006. A few days later, he began receiving death threats.

If extremists have managed to intimidate France’s schools and universities, why should they not be able to subdue all of society?   (Guilio Meotti, Gatestone, 1/23/2021)

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On the occasion of US President Joe Biden’s inauguration yesterday, the German government is holding out the prospect of closer transatlantic cooperation, while insisting on an independent position, concerning key controversial issues. “We will not always agree with the new administration” despite all the cooperation, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas announced, after all “Europe” has its own interests. With the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) that the EU reached with China, just prior to the change in personnel at the White House, the EU clearly rejects the “decoupling,” advocated by the US government, including the Biden administration. Moreover, yesterday, a leading CDU foreign policy expert published a plea for renewed cooperation with Russia, which is clearly rejected by Washington. In their quest for an independent EU world power status, Berlin and Brussels can rely on majority support within the population. According to a recent survey, 67 percent of the residents of ten EU countries and Great Britain favor greater military independence; two thirds reject siding with the USA in the power struggle with China.  (German Foreign Policy, 1/22/2021)

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NETHERLANDS RIOTS CONTINUE

The Dutch government says it will not lift a curfew, after a third night of violent protests against increased Covid curbs across the Netherlands.

Shops in Rotterdam and other cities were looted and Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra said: “It’s scum doing this.” More than 180 arrests have been made.

The Dutch chief of police said the riots no longer had “anything to do with the basic right to demonstrate.”

The criminal violence had to stop, said Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

Shop-owners in Rotterdam, Den Bosch and other cities spent Tuesday morning cleaning up the debris from Monday night’s violence.

Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb sent a passionate message to “shameless thieves” who had caused the damage:  “Does it make you feel good that you’ve helped ruin your city? To wake up with a bag full of stolen stuff beside you?” (BBC, 1/26/2021)

DAILYKENN.com – Denmark is putting an end to offering asylum to new refugees. The change in policy comes after the tiny nation’s population swelled by 14 percent comprised largely of Turk, Syrian and Iraqi aliens. About 800,000 of Denmark’s population of 5.8 million. 

In spite of the reported prohibition on offering asylum, the number of aliens in Denmark will continue to increase as Middle-easterners tend to have elevated birth rates. In time, Middle-easterners, nearly all of whom are Muslims, will dominate Denmark’s population.   (Daily Ken, 1/26/2021)

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The German health ministry has rejected a report in one of the country’s newspapers saying the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is only 8% effective in over-65s: ‘At first glance, it seems that two things were confused in the reports:  around eight percent of the subjects in the AstraZeneca effectiveness study were between 56 and 69 years of age,’ it said.  AstraZeneca says the report is ‘completely incorrect.’  (Spectator, 1/26/2021)

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Schools must reopen to combat ‘frightening levels’ of childhood depression, according  to a letter by some of the country’s top pediatricians sent to today’s Times. The letter also expresses concern about the stresses placed on parents during home schooling.   (Spectator, UK, 1/26/2021)

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USA

BIDEN’S FIRST DAY

Has there ever been such a profound and jarring disconnect between a new American president’s words and actions on his very first day in office?

In his inauguration speech, President Joe Biden hymned unity. America, he said, must “stop the shouting, and lower the temperature.”  It must put behind it “anger, resentment, hatred, extremism, lawlessness, violence, disease, joblessness and hopelessness” and reaffirm “history, faith and reason.”

Yet within hours of that speech, Biden signed a slew of executive orders to set America on a path of anger, resentment, hatred, division, lawlessness and joblessness and, which undermine history, faith and reason.

And — excuse me — executive orders? When President Donald Trump used them, the Democrats howled that this showed he was a proto-fascist hell-bent on circumventing constitutional procedures and proper democratic scrutiny.  When Biden signs a whole bunch of them on his first afternoon in office, however, this is apparently “getting back to normal.”   (“No, this is not getting back to normal,” Melanie Phillips, UK, 1/24/2021)

NEW YORK TIMES SUPPORTS END TO MUSLIM BAN

What about the suffering of those whose lives were destroyed by Somali migrants who came into the country before Trump’s travel ban came into effect?  Can we get a New York Times article on them?  Somali Muslim migrant Mohammad Barry in February 2016 stabbed multiple patrons at a restaurant owned by an Israeli Arab Christian. When is the New York Times going to interview the people whom Barry stabbed, and publish a piece about how they have suffered, and how their lives forever changed that day? When is the New York Times going to write a piece about the other people who were in the restaurant that day, and explore their trauma, their horror, their terror, and the nightmares and anxiety they have experienced since then?  When does the New York Times plan to profile the victims of Dahir Adan, another Somali Muslim migrant, who in October 2016 stabbed mall shoppers in St. Cloud while screaming “Allahu akbar?”  Do Adan’s victims get a New York Times article about their injuries, their healing processes, any operations they may have had to undergo, and their own ongoing trauma and fear?  How about the victims of Abdul Razak Artan, yet another Somali Muslim migrant, who in November 2016 injured nine people with car and knife attacks at Ohio State University?  Does the New York Times plan to explain to us how the victims whom Artan tried to run down with his car (in an instance of the common phenomenon of vehicular jihad) now find their heart racing at the prospect of having to cross the street? (Robert Spencer, Jihad Watch, 1/25/2021)

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Cancelling Keystone Means Oil Goes to China, Other Countries, or Less Safe Rail: Republican Senator (Epoch Times, 1/24/2021).   Tens of thousands of US jobs will be lost.

“Under Xi Jinping, said Blinken, China seeks to “become the leading country in the world — the country that sets the norms, that sets the standards.”  In short, China’s geostrategic goal is to replace the U.S.-created world order with a new world order of its own.”  (Pat Buchanan, 1/26/2021)

DOUBLE STANDARD:  George Floyd’s prior arrests can’t be mentioned at the trials of four Minneapolis cops charged in his death – but jurors WILL be allowed to hear about officer Derek Chauvin’s previous use of force, judge says.

(https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9190459/Judge-Floyds-past-arrest-details-used-trial.html  1/26/2021)

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Now that Donald Trump is no longer president, the governor of California seems to have little incentive to trash his state’s economy. 

Gov. Gavin Newsom vicariously eased the state’s Coronavirus stay-at-home order. Newsom faces a recall from voters who are fed up with the state’s punitive stay-at-home policies.  (Daily Ken, 1/26/2021)

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The big prize for Ignorance must go to the Capitol Chaplain who led prayers one morning earlier this month.  At the end of the prayer, he said “Amen or Awoman.”  According to Wikipedia,  “Amen is derived from the Hebrew āmēn, which means “certainty,” “truth,” and “verily.” It has absolutely nothing to do with gender!  

“Someone once said that if fascism ever comes to America, it will come in the name of liberalism. “ (Ronald Reagan)

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WARNING FOR CHRISTIANS

• Muslim fighters tortured a 58-year-old Christian woman of Armenian descent by hacking off her ears, hands, and feet before finally executing her. — Medium.com, January 14, 2021, Artsakh. As to why she was mutilated before being killed, jihadis often cite the Koran’s calls to cut off the hands, feet, and throats of infidels (e.g., Koran 5:33, 47:4). — Artsakh
• One of the survivors… managed to escape his home in time and hide in the outside bathroom: “through the ventilator of the latrine he saw the rebels killing 4 members of his family including his wife and 3 children.” — Virtueonline.org, December 3, 2020, Democratic Republic of Congo.
• “My husband began reading verses in the Koran that allowed men to beat their wives if they disobey them, and after that he started beating me….” — Morning Star News, December 17, 2020, Uganda.  (Raymond Ibrahim, Gatestone, 1/24/2021)

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CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS

In Mexico, Archaeologists Reveal a Story of Cannibalism and Conquest| Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine – After the Aztecs sacrificed and ate a Spanish-led caravan in 1520, Hernán Cortés’ forces retaliated by massacring women and children

During the Spanish Conquest of Mexico, interactions between the Aztecs and the European colonizers were often marked by horrifying atrocities. Now, reports the Associated Press, archaeologists have unearthed a nightmarish new chapter in that story.  In early 1521, the year after the Aztecs captured and cannibalized a convoy of dozens of Spaniards and hundreds of allied Indigenous people, Spanish forces responded by massacring Aztec women and children.

Researchers with Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have long known about the cannibalism that took place in the town of Zultépec-Tecoaque in 1520.  The name Tecoaque, after all, means “the place where they ate them” in the Aztec language of Nahuatl.  But the new research reveals previously unknown details of what happened next.

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TO THE POINT

• SUCH overwhelming support for Trump should tell us that something is seriously wrong in our societies. Huge numbers of people feel betrayed by an emerging New World Order in which they have no place.   (POLITICO, 1/25/2021)

• Germans warn UK’s departure a heavy blow:  ‘Bells are tolling!’  BREXIT will be a heavy blow for the UK and the “bells are tolling” for efforts to stop a dominant European superpower,’ sneering German commentators claim.
• (Express UK, Jan 9, 2021) 

• Syrian Islamic Scholar Tawfiq Ramadhan Al-Bouti:  Many Nations Feel Disgust Towards The Jews, Who Incite Wars, Spread Depravity; Their ‘Filthy’ History Is Rife With Treachery And Betrayal   (MEMRI 1/22/2021)

• PROPHETIC COMMENT ON US ELECTION:   With a cabinet full of war criminals, Raytheon board members, lobbyists for weapons manufacturers and neocon think tankers, the only thing Joe Biden is gonna bring to the Middle East is more bombs.  (Sarah Abdallah,  Independent Lebanese geopolitical commentator on Twitter).

• When Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte resigned Tuesday — plunging the country into chaos as it faces once-in-a-generation public health and economic  crises — he became the fourteenth Italian to vacate the prime ministership in three decades. (For contrast, Germany has only had three chancellors since 1982, and France has had five presidents.)  (Gzero Signal, 1/27/2021)

• 4 ZIMBABWE CABINET MEMBERS DEAD FROM COVID:   Four Zimbabwean Cabinet ministers have died of COVID-19, three within the past two weeks, highlighting a resurgence of the disease that is sweeping through this southern African country.  President Emmerson Mnangagwa said the coronavirus is reaping a “grim harvest” in the country. Then came the death of the transport minister.   (1/25/2021)

• UK to announce quarantine hotels – The government is expected to announce today that some travelers coming to England will have to quarantine in hotels on arrival. The new measures are likely to apply to UK citizens and those with permanent residency rights arriving from high-risk countries, including South Africa. Whitehall sources told BBC Newsnight that those quarantining in hotels would have to pay for the costs of their own accommodation. The measure will be an “effective closure of our borders,” the airline industry said.  (The Week, 1/26/2021)

• “Dostoevsky was made by being sent to Siberia. Writers are forged in injustice as a sword is forged.”   – Ernest Hemingway

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Inbox

A WORD FROM THE EPOCH TIMES

Have you ever wondered how skewed media coverage affects an election?

In a poll conducted by the Media Research Center (MRC), 1 in 6 Joe Biden voters surveyed said they would not have voted for Biden if they had known about one or more of eight news stories. 

The eight stories used in the poll were about Biden or Donald Trump. Three of the topics were negative about Biden, including his son Hunter Biden’s email scandal. Five of them were positive about Trump. 

This indicates that people may not be getting important information that would help them decide which candidate best reflects their values. The MRC poll showed that 17% of Biden voters would have changed their vote—enough to change the outcome of the presidential election. 

Suppressing information like this can lead Americans to make decisions that they don’t actually agree with – the opposite of how a healthy democracy is supposed to work.   (The Epoch Times is a conservative weekly paper)

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PROPHETIC MESSAGE FOR BIDEN

In a video message for President Biden, Messianic rabbi Jonathan Cahn recalled the first inaugural address 232 years ago when President George Washington gave the nation “a prophetic warning.”

“The propitious smiles of heaven cannot be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right that heaven itself has ordained,” Washington told the nation.

Cahn said in his video, posted Monday on YouTube, that there’s a message for the current president and the nation he leads.

“If America follows the ways of God, the blessings of God will remain,” Cahn said. “If it doesn’t, they will be removed.”

WARNING FOR AMERICA

“But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:”  (Deut 28:15)

IS CRIMEA EUROPE’S FUTURE?

It’s been exactly a hundred years since an assassin’s bullets opened up an ethnic can of worms across Europe, the Middle East, and eventually the rest of the world.

Prior to the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914, Europe was not exactly free of ethnic tensions or religious divides.  Irish Catholics had been campaigning for Home Rule for decades; Hungarians wanted to rule themselves but remain under the Hapsburg crown; Poles wanted to be free of Russia, Germany, and Austria, free to resurrect their own nation again; Zionists wanted their own state in what is now Israel.

But, prior to 1914, imperialism was in vogue.  Large empires composed of multiple nationalities were more the norm.  Globalization was all the rage.

It all came crashing down as the most significant assassination in history led, 37 days later, to “the war to end all wars.”  After the war, the peace treaty allowed a number of different ethnic groups to have their own independent nation state.   The Czechs and Slovaks were grouped together in Czechoslovakia; the Poles got their own country; the Finns, too; Hungarians were formally separated from Austria; the Serbs, who, arguably started the war in the first place, got their own country with the Croats in the new Yugoslavia;  even the Ukrainians had a brief period of independence.

They have just had another such period, this time for over twenty years.  It may be coming to an end again.  Maybe.  Maybe not.

The vote in the Crimea on Sunday is a foregone conclusion, with 58% of the people in the region Russian speaking.  It’s not that the vote will be rigged – there’s no need for that.   The majority will vote to switch allegiance from Kiev to Moscow.  If it wasn’t a certainty, Russia would not be holding a referendum.   This vote, it is hoped, will justify their invasion and put an end to the whole matter.

It won’t be that simple.

What about the Ukrainian minority inside Crimea?  What about the Russian speaking areas in the east of Ukraine?  Will Russia invade them?  What about the Tatars?

Ah yes, the Tatars.

They constitute 12% of the population of the Crimea.  They were the pre-Russian inhabitants of the peninsula, invaded by Catherine the Great in the late eighteenth century.   They are a Turkic people left over from the days of the Ottoman Empire.  They are Muslims.  More significantly, they got a raw deal, a real raw deal, from Russia under Josef Stalin, who had them all forcibly removed from their homes and transported to Siberia with only 15 minutes notice.  They dread a return to Russian rule.

It may be that they have little to fear.  After all, neither Stalin nor Catherine were actually Russian.  But Russia is having difficulties already with its Muslim minorities – it’s unlikely the Tatars will fare any better than the Chechens.

The ethnic complexities of the region are symbolic of the wider European ethnic quilt.

Spain doesn’t want Crimea to break away from Ukraine because they don’t want their own Catalans to break away from their country; the Scots are voting in September on possibly breaking away from the United Kingdom; Belgium has had serious ethnic divisions ever since the country was created almost two centuries ago; the Balkans always has further potential for ethnic conflict; Rumania has a significant Hungarian minority that would like to join Hungary; while Hungary has its own minorities.

The EU has actually made the problem worse.   It is possible now for every small ethnic group to have its own country and still be economically viable through the European Union.  If Scotland breaks away from the UK, it can seek membership of the EU and minimize the economic consequences of breaking away from the bigger whole.

In theory.

They would actually have to have approval of the other member countries, including England.   And none of them has a vested interest right now in approving Scottish membership.  It might encourage separatists in their own countries.   Additionally, the last thing the 28-member EU needs is yet another voting member, holding back further progress toward European unity.  They also don’t want more members needing a bail-out.

However, it’s also possible that the proliferation of smaller countries in the EU could lead to a resurrection of the medieval Holy Roman Empire, a motley assortment of political entities that all owed allegiance to a common German emperor.

Rather than Sunday’s vote bringing an end to the European crisis, it may turn out to just be the beginning!