A LETHAL STATE OF DENIAL

Western society has its head buried in the sand . . .

In both Britain and America, the security agencies have allowed themselves to become increasingly focused on a reportedly rising threat from white supremacism. But the overwhelming threat to the west comes from Islamic extremism.

The security establishment is reflecting a wider state of denial. In both countries, the political, media and cultural establishment has blocked itself from acknowledging the true nature and extent of Islamic radicalization.  (Melanie Phillips)

While terrorist attacks by lone white supremacists provoke instant claims of a dangerous cultural trend, terrorist attacks by lone Islamists tend to provoke instead the claim that the perpetrator was mentally ill and therefore his actions had no wider significance.

Thus, Akram has been widely reported as having had serious mental health problems. Yet the JC talked to his former doctor, who said Akram had been “a confident man who didn’t need any mental help” and had no mental health complaints in his medical notes.

It’s not just that media coverage of the Colleyville attack has been muted, with virtually no acknowledgment of the attacker’s antisemitism.  (“A lethal state of denial,” Melanie Phillips, 1/21/2022)

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THE WEST’S POLICY TOWARD RUSSIA NOT WORKING

Prior to Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s talks with her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, criticism was raised over Berlin and Washington’s current confrontational approach to Russia. The West’s policy toward Russia, which is “only based on deterrence,” has “been unsuccessful,” according to the political scientist Johannes Varwick in an article published by a leading German journal. Extensive negotiations with Moscow are indispensable. They should include the perspective of Ukraine’s “neutrality” (“Finlandization”). Contrary to claims by politicians and the media, Ukraine’s “free choice of alliance” is not the only applicable principle in international agreements regarding the country’s possible NATO accession. Several OSCE documents oblige European states to choose their security arrangements, such as joining a military alliance, “not at the expense of the security of other states.” German media, on the other hand, are advocating a further escalation of the dangerous conflict. (German Foreign Policy, 1/18/2022)

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Russian Duma Member Yevgeny Fyodorov Suggests Nuclear Strike On Nevada: The U.S. Thinks Russia Is Bluffing; Striking U.S. Defense Dept. Facilities With A Ballistic Missile Will Prove Otherwise; We Should Threaten American Territory, Not Ukraine  (MEMRI, 1/26/2022)

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SWIFT OFF THE TABLE

 In the discussion on western sanctions against Russia, suspending the country from the international banking payment system SWIFT is off the table, according to a report. Even though recently it had been contemplated to exclude Russia from the international banking payment system in case of a military escalation of the Ukraine conflict, it is no longer considered a realistic option, government sources contend. The expected damage for the West would simply be too high. The EU states, including Germany, would, for example, no longer be able to pay for gas deliveries from Russia, a suspe’nsion of deliveries could be the consequence. In addition, Moscow and Beijing already have their own payment systems, which could quickly become competition for SWIFT, if Russia is suspended and this would jeopardize the West’s dominance over the international banking payment system. If the report is confirmed, it would be a serious setback for the West’s sanctions policy, which would lose its most effective financial weapon. Sanctions against Russian banks are now being considered as an alternative.   (German Foreign Policy, 1/19/2022)

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POPE BENEDICT IGNORED ABUSE

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is among three senior German clerics implicated in misconduct by a report into clerical sex abuse in the Archdiocese of Munich between 1949 and 2019 released today, Madoc Cairns writes that the then-archbishop Joseph Ratzinger is accused of failing to take action in four cases of alleged sexual abuse while he was Archbishop of Munich between 1977 and 1982; Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the present Archbishop, is accused of inaction in two such cases and Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, his predecessor, is accused of inaction in 21 cases. Cardinal Marx is due to give a press conference later today. “In a total of four cases, we came to the conclusion that the then-archbishop, Cardinal Ratzinger, can be accused of misconduct,” one of the report’s lawyers, Martin Pusch, said. Two cases involved clerics who abused while he was in office and received criminal convictions by secular authorities, but were allowed to perform pastoral duties within the Archdiocese without corresponding action being taken in canon law. In a third case, a cleric with criminal convictions for abuse outside of Germany was transferred to Munich, and, Pusch said, the evidence suggests Benedict knew of the priest’s previous behaviour.  Richard Scorer, an English lawyer who represented a number of abuse victims in the UK’s Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), said: “Pope Benedict was as complicit as other senior Catholics in covering up abuse scandals in his own backyard.” (The Tablet, UK, Catholic, Editor’s newsletter, 20 Dec 2022)

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Teddy Roosevelt statue removed from outside American Museum of Natural History in New York

NEW YORK, 19 Jan 2022 (Reuters) – Workers on Wednesday dismantled a towering statue of President Theodore Roosevelt from outside New York City’s American Museum of Natural History. The “Equestrian Statue of Theodore Roosevelt,” commissioned in 1925 and unveiled to the public in 1940, depicts Roosevelt on a horse, with a Native American man and an African man on foot at his side. It has been criticized by some as a symbol of colonialism and racism.

(https://www.reuters.com/world/us/teddy-roosevelt-statue-removed-outside-new-york-museum-2022-01-19/)

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Germany wants to attract 400,000 skilled workers from abroad each year

BERLIN, Jan 21, 2022 (Reuters) – Germany’s new coalition government wants to attract 400,000 qualified workers from abroad each year to tackle both a demographic imbalance and labour shortages in key sectors that risk undermining the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

“The shortage of skilled workers has become so serious by now that it is dramatically slowing down our economy,” Christian Duerr, parliamentary leader of the co-governing Free Democrats (FDP), told business magazine WirtschaftsWoche.  “We can only get the problem of an aging workforce under control with a modern immigration policy… We have to reach the mark of 400,000 skilled workers from abroad as quickly as possible,” Duerr added.  Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, Duerr’s libertarian FDP and the environmentalist Greens agreed in their coalition deal on measures like a points system for specialists from countries outside the European Union and lifting the national minimum wage to 12 euros ($13.60) per hour to make working in Germany more attractive.  

The employer-friendly German Economic Institute estimates that the labour force will shrink by more than 300,000 people this year as there are more older workers retiring than younger ones entering the labour market.  This gap is expected to widen to more than 650,000 in 2029, leaving an accumulated shortage of people of working age in 2030 of roughly 5 million. The number of Germans in employment grew to nearly 45 million last year despite the coronavirus pandemic.  After decades of low birth rates and uneven migration, a shrinking labour force also poses a demographic time bomb for Germany’s public pension system, in which fewer employees are burdened with the task of financing the pensions of a growing mass of retirees who are enjoying longer life expectancy.

(https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/germany-wants-attract-400000-skilled-workers-abroad-each-year-2022-01-21/)

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Germany has offered financial aid to Ukraine in an apparent bid to calm a diplomatic storm triggered by Berlin’s refusal to provide military assistance to deter Russian aggression.

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that “economic stabilisation” was “one of the decisive measures” of support that Germany could provide to the war-threatened former Soviet state. “It is important that we especially keep the economic situation in Ukraine in mind,” she told reporters ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.

Baerbock added that “we are very closely on Ukraine’s side in terms of both financial and economic support”, but refused to specify what such aid would entail. Baerbock’s promise of economic aid came after Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko accused Germany of “betraying its friends” by banning arms exports and supporting the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Europe.  (The Week, 1/27/2022)

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Denmark, New Zealand and Finland top list of least corrupt nations while South Sudan is the worst and US drops out of top 25 amid ‘continuous attacks on free and fair elections’

• Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index ranks countries on a scale of a ‘highly corrupt’ 0 to a ‘very clean’ 100
• Denmark, New Zealand and Finland tied for first place with 88 points each
• South Sudan was at the bottom of the list with 11 points, making it the worst country for corruption.

(https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10438219/Anti-corruption-fight-stalled-COVID-not-helping.html)

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Dominic Raab has said that it is “extremely unlikely” that British troops will be sent to the Ukrainian-Russian border as fears mount that a Russian invasion of Ukraine could be imminent.

The deputy prime minister told Sky News’s Trevor Phillips on Sunday that the UK would “support” Ukraine in “defending themselves” and warned of “very serious, severe economic consequences” for the Kremlin in the event of a Russian invasion.

Raab told Phillips that the UK was standing “shoulder to shoulder” with Ukraine, but stopped short of committing to sending more British troops to the border, where more than 125,000 Russian troops are reported to be stationed.  (The Week, 1/25/2022)

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Russian, Syrian pilots conduct joint air patrol mission along Golan Heights

The mission involved Russia’s Su-34 and Su-35 aircraft and the A-50 early warning and control aircraft, as well as Syria’s MiG-23 and MiG-29 planes.

MOSCOW, January 24. /TASS/. Russian and Syrian military pilots have conducted a joint air patrol mission along the Golan Heights and the Euphrates River, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. “The mission’s route ran along the Golan Heights, the southern order, the Euphrates River and over northern Syria,” the statement reads. “Russian pilots took off from the Hmeymim Air Base, while Syrians took off from the Seikal and Dumayr airfields outside Damascus,” the ministry added. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the mission involved Russia’s Su-34 and Su-35 aircraft and the A-50 early warning and control aircraft, as well as Syria’s MiG-23 and MiG-29 planes. “During the patrol mission, Syrian pilots controlled airspace and provided fighter cover, while Russian crews practiced attacks on ground targets,” the statement specified. The ministry said that pilots had practiced strikes on air targets and ground targets at a training range in central Syria. “The two countries’ pilots developed skills for cooperation in various situations.  This kind of joint missions will now take place on a regular basis,” the Russian Defense Ministry stressed. (https://tass.com/defense/1392105)

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The UK’s official Covid-19 death toll is being questioned after the release of a Freedom of Information (FOI) request made to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The request asked for data on “deaths purely from Covid with no other underlying causes”. The data provided by the ONS shows that there have been more than 17,300 Covid-19 deaths not related to any pre-existing health conditions such as asthma, diabetes or heart disease.  (The Week, 1/26/2022)

Emergency measures to stem the spread of Covid-19 have “allowed corruption to go unchecked” in countries worldwide, according to a newly published report.

Researchers at Transparency International (TI) found that more than 130 nations “have made no significant progress against corruption in the last decade”, and that the ongoing health crisis has been “used in many countries as an excuse to curtail basic freedoms and side-step important checks and balances”.  (The Week, 1/26/2022)

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TO THE POINT

New Zealand has cut off the only route into the country after the head of the country’s quarantine system warned of a tenfold increase in Covid-19 cases at the border.

Health officials announced yesterday that “new spaces in the country’s managed isolation and quarantine system (MIQ) would not be released,” The Guardian reported. Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the effective closure of the border was “temporary,” but gave no indication of when travel to the country would be permitted again.   (The Week, 1/19/2022)

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FINAL THOUGHT

A few weeks ago I shared with you that I had read Hayley Mills’ autobiography, Forever Young.  I have long since returned the book to the library so I can’t look up what page the following was on, but I do remember that Hayley’s maternal grandmother “shocked” the family by announcing that she had become a British Israelite.   Most people are not comfortable with people taking the Bible seriously.

British Israelites come from all walks of life and have differing beliefs on other scriptural issues.  But they hold the British Israelite teaching in common.  The British Israel World Federation is based in the United Kingdom but operates in other countries of the Anglosphere.

British Israelism (sometimes called Anglo-Israelism) is the belief that the nations of NW Europe are descended from the Lost Ten Tribes of ancient Israel.   It then follows that the end-time prophecies in the Bible relating to Israel apply to those nations.

Genesis 48:13-16 is a key passage here.  This is where Jacob (Israel) gives his blessing to the two sons of Joseph, his eleventh son.   The prophecy is very exact and detailed. ^“And Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel’s left hand, and Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel’s right hand, and brought them near him. ¹⁴ Then Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands knowingly, for Manasseh was the firstborn.”  You can’t get more detailed than that.  

Ephraim was to be the greater recipient of Israel’s blessings; Manasseh was secondary.

As Ephraim was the younger son, and the tradition was that the eldest should receive the primary blessings, Joseph stepped in to try to put things right.  But Jacob would have none of it.

But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.”   (verse 19).  

There you have it.  Two brothers, each receiving their grandfather’s blessing.  One brother was to become a multitude of nations, the other a “great” nation.    The (British) Commonwealth of Nations and the United States. 

Wikipedia has this to say on British Israelism:

“According to Brackney (2012) and Fine (2015), the French Huguenot magistrate M. le Loyer’s The Ten Lost Tribes, published in 1590, provided one of the earliest expressions of the belief that the Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, Scandinavian, Germanic, and associated peoples are the direct descendants of the Old Testament Israelites. Anglo-Israelism has also been attributed to Francis Drake and King James VI and I, who believed he was the King of Israel. Adriaan van Schrieck (1560–1621), who influenced Henry Spelman (1562–1641) and John Sadler (1615–74), wrote in the early 17th century about his ideas on the origins of the Celtic and Saxon peoples. In 1649, Sadler published The Rights of the Kingdom, “which argues for an ‘Israelite genealogy for the British people’.”

Aspects of British Israelism and its influences have also been traced to Richard Brothers, who published A Revealed Knowledge of the Prophecies and Times in 1794, John Wilson’s Our Israelitish Origin (1844), and John Pym Yeatman’s The Shemetic Origin of the Nations of Western Europe (1879).

“The extent to which the British clergy became aware of the existence of the movement may be gauged by the comment which Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890) made when he was asked why he had left the Church of England in 1845 in order to join the Roman Catholic Church. He said that there was a very real danger that the movement “would take over the Church of England.”

“In 1914, the thirty-fourth year of its publication, the Anglo-Israel Almanac listed the details of a large number of Kingdom Identity Groups which were operating independently throughout the British Isles as well as in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, and the United States of America.”   (Wikipedia:  British Israelism)

It’s not surprising that British Israel enjoyed its greatest following in the decades from 1880 to World War I.   This was when the British people ruled over an empire upon which the “sun never set.”   A quarter of the world’s people lived within the empire.   Before the United States became of any significance, the British dominated over everything.   People forget that now. 

British domination lasted 250 years.   When the British lost the top position, the US took over.  But it was never to dominate in the same way and would not last as long.  Already, after only 70 years, we see the US in rapid decline.

There are plenty of books on the subject.   It’s worth looking into.   Because many end-time prophecies relate to “Israel,” which is populated by the Jews, who were just one of the Lost Tribes.   So the prophecies must apply somewhere else.

No other nations have fulfilled these promises.

ELECTORAL EARTHQUAKE IN GERMANY

‘The CDU cannot participate in a government under the elected minister-president,’ says chancellor Merkel. (Photo by Maja Hitij/Getty Images)

An electoral earthquake in the German state of Thuringia is reverberating across the country and its aftershocks are being felt in Brussels.

Berlin’s political establishment has been rocked by an electoral pact between the conservative Christian Democrats, liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) that has propelled a local FDP candidate to power in the eastern state of Thuringia.   By co-operating with the AfD and ousting the sitting leftwing prime minister of the region Germany’s mainstream parties have “torn up” a post-war consensus to ostracise the extreme right, writes Guy Chazan.

Stinging condemnation has rung out from all corners — including the highest ranks of the CDU.   Before yesterday, the liberals and conservatives had vowed never to work with the AfD.   Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, CDU defence minister, lashed out at the Thuringian branch of her party for explicitly disobeying Berlin’s orders.   Elected FDP candidate Thomas Kemmerich is under immense pressure to resign and hold new elections.   Around 1,000 noisy protesters gathered outside the FDP’s HQ in Berlin last night accusing the party of getting into bed with “Nazis.”                      (Maureen Kahn, ft Brussels Briefing, 2/6)

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DAM BURST  — Germany shaken as far-right plays regional kingmaker

It has been a tenet of German politics since the Second World War that mainstream political parties do not legitimize far right movements by siding with them on any issue – but that taboo was shattered on Wednesday, eliciting nationwide outrage.

In the eastern German state of Thuringia, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat party (CDU) and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) both used the parliamentary support of nationalist party Alternative fur Deutschland to bring their choice of leader to power.                    (The Week, 2/6)

The parliament in Thuringia, in eastern Germany, elected Thomas Kemmerich from the Free Democrats as state premier.   Mr. Kemmerich’s shocking victory was made possible only with votes from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).   No state government has previously been elected with AfD support.  Politicians across the spectrum expressed dismay at the result.  (Economist 2/6)

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GERMANY’S FUTURE IN DOUBT

Germany was plunged into political uncertainty after the leader of the governing Christian Democratic Union resigned.   A protégée of Angela Merkel, the chancellor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer was seen as a shoo-in to succeed her.   Then last week the local leader of a small party was elected premier of the eastern state of Thuringia, with votes from the CDU – and the far-right Alternative for Germany – to widespread outrage.   Ms. Kramp-Karrenbauer bungled the response. Previous gaffes had left her vulnerable.      (The Economist, 02/11/2020)

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TRUMP WINNING

With his personal approval ratings at an all-time high, the impeachment process behind him and the US economy booming, Donald Trump’s odds of winning a second term now stand at nearly 60% according to betting aggregator Oddschecker.com.

Add to this a Democratic party in near total disarray and the US president may be on the cusp of fulfilling his 2016 campaign promise to supporters that “We gonna win so much you may even get tired of winning and you’ll say please, please Mr. President, it’s too much winning, we can’t take it anymore.”  (The Week, 2/7)

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HOUSING COSTS

While the past several decades of globalization and technological development have lowered the price of most goods and services in the US, there’s been inflation in all the things that make people middle class: healthcare, education and, most important, housing.  Over the past decade, the cost of shelter has risen sharply compared with everything else — housing prices contributed a record 81 per cent to core inflation in summer 2017 and remain responsible for “the lion’s share” of all inflation in the US, according to a recent Cornell University study.   (Financial Times, 2/10/2020)

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The Observer:    UK child abuse inquiry – ‘We were abused every day.’     Decades on, children’s homes victims wait for justice.  This week an all-party report will demand a reckoning for the epidemic  of institutional child abuse in the 1970s and 1980s.                              by Yvonne Roberts, The Guardian UK, 8 Feb, 2020

As police admitted for the first time last week that there was an “epidemic” of  institutional child sexual abuse in church institutions, children’s homes, borstals, schools and foster families in the 1970s and 80s, chief constable Simon Bailey, the national lead for child protection and abuse investigations, said:   “We do not understand the true scale of it … untold damage has been done to victims and survivors.”   On 11 February a damning report by the all-party parliamentary group on Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse will be highly critical of the support and resources available to these children, now in their 50s, 60s and older, many of whom have spent a lifetime with their experiences not believed and redress unobtainable.  The report is titled Can Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse Access Justice and Support? and the conclusion is an emphatic “no.”   Based on two years’ work, it finds all the major services, including police, health, crown prosecution and courts, are failing to address a potential national crisis, with support services struggling to meet demand.   The Office for National Statistics estimates that 3.1 million people aged 18-74 were sexually abused in childhood.  However, only one in seven callers to the helpline of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood had previously disclosed abuse.                      (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/fe)

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IRA BIG WINNER IN IRISH ELECTION                                                        (Sinn Fein has long been considered the political wing of the terrorist organization)

Dublin deadlock Sinn Féin has demanded a role in Ireland’s new government after surging to the highest vote share in the general election.  With counting still under way, the nationalist party, led by Mary Lou McDonald, took 24.5 per cent of the vote after pushing prime minister Leo Varadkar’s centre-right Fine Gael into third place with 20.9 per cent.   The centrist opposition Fianna Fáil, led by Micheál Martin, came second with 22.2 per cent but is likely to be the largest party in parliament because Sinn Féin did not run enough candidates to be able to take the most seats.                                  (Financial Times, 2/10/2020)

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MOHIUSSUNNATH CHOWDHURY                                                      Madame Tussauds Terror Plot Revealed

A 28-year-old man from Luton has been found guilty of planning a terror attack on tourist hotspots in London, two years after being arrested with a samurai sword outside Buckingham Palace.

Mohiussunnath Chowdhury, known as Musa, was convicted of terrorism offences at Woolwich Crown Court yesterday.                  (The Week, 2/11/2020)

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Next East Africa locust swarms airborne in 3 to 4 weeks, UN warns Baby desert locusts in Somalia will become East Africa’s next plague wave, UN agronomy experts have warned.   Climate change-driven rain has triggered “unprecedented” breeding, says UN chief Antonio Guterres.(Deutsche Welle, 9 Feb 2020)

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned Sunday that nymph (baby) desert locusts maturing in Somalia’s rebel-held backcountry, where aerial spraying is next to unrealizable, will develop wings in the “next three or four weeks” and threaten millions of people already short of food.   Once in flight and hungry, the swarm could be the “most devastating plague of locusts in any of our living memories if we don’t reduce the problem faster than we are doing at the moment,” said UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock.

The locusts were now “very hungry teenagers,” but once mature, their progeny would hatch, generating “about a 20-fold increase” in numbers, warned Keith Cressman, FAO locust forecasting officer. “Mother Nature” alone would not solve the crisis, said Dominique Burgeon, resilience director of the FAO, which has urged international donors to give $76 million (€69.4 million) immediately.  Swarms, which left damage across parts of Ethiopia and Kenya in December, could also put Uganda, South Sudan, Eritrea and Djibouti at risk, making it the worst such situation in 25 years, the FAO said.  East Africa already has 19 million people facing acute food insecurity, according to the regional inter-agency Food Security and Nutrition Working Group (FSNWG).                  (https://www.dw.com/en/next-east-africa-locust-swarms-airborne-in-3-to-4-weeks-un-warns/a-52312510)

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DECLINE OF THE WEST

The Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, is focusing the debate of the coming weekend’s conference on the insipient decline of the West.   Whereas, in the post-Cold War era western powers enjoyed “almost uncontested freedom of military movement,” this is no longer the case today, according to this year’s “Munich Security Report,” which Ischinger presented to the public yesterday.   Even the “nearly unrivaled global superiority in military technology” NATO had enjoyed for decades, is now endangered.   The report quotes French President Emmanuel Macron’s comment:   “We were used to an international order that had been based on Western hegemony since the 18th century. Things change.”   To prevent the West’s further decline, Ischinger is calling for resolute offensives in global policy.   Sectors of the elites in several western countries are now turning to an ultra-right policy. In Berlin, this debate had contributed to the demise of the CDU chairwoman yesterday.      (German Foreign Policy, 2/11/2020)

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US-FILIPINO MILITARY ALLIANCE TO END

The Philippines told the U.S. it would scrap an agreement considered a cornerstone of the two countries’ military alliance, a move the U.S. State Department said would have serious implications for the relationship.            (Wall Street Journal, 2/12/2020)

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TO THE POINT

• We went to see the movie “1917” last week.  It was very good and quite intense.  It’s a good reminder of what it was like in the trenches.  Almost one million British men died in combat in what was historically the worst conflict in history.
• I’m reading “Lost to the West” by Lars Brownworth (2009).   He’s a former American high school history teacher who has written one of the best books ever on the Byzantine Empire.   It’s so gripping I did not want to put it down.   There are so many lessons for the US now.   It was the divisions within the governing elite that enabled the Muslims to get control of what had been the world’s greatest “Christian” Empire for over a thousand years.  It was truly a great loss to the west!
• Muslims have not stopped their advance into the West.   They now have quite a foothold in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France and other nations.   We bend over backwards to accommodate their religion.  Our new Michigan Governor, Gretchen Whitmer, in her State of the State speech, proudly proclaimed that the Executive Mansion hosted a Diwali (Hindu) evening and a night of Ramadan festivities (Islam) last year, both at tax payer expense.
• Check out Sky News, a British TV channel that’s now available throughout the US.   I watch it on “Watch Free,” a free streaming service.  They have a good balance of British and world news.   Some of their correspondents are outstanding.

GROWING DIVIDE BETWEEN ANGLOS AND EUROPE

Jean Claude Juncker is the President of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union.   Clearly frustrated and somewhat dazed since the successful Brexit vote nine months ago, Mr. Juncker yesterday threatened to support secessionist movements in the United States, if President Trump continues to support the British Brexit.   He specifically mentioned Ohio and Texas.

As Ohio has no secessionist movement that I’m aware of, it shows that Mr. Juncker has little knowledge or understanding of the US.   If he had listed Alaska, Hawaii and California, along with Texas, he would have had more credibility.   All four states have vocal secessionist movements.

However, Mr. Juncker is not the only one who is ignorant of other nations a long way away.   Americans have very little knowledge or understanding of Europe.   The vast majority of people in the United States have never heard of Mr. Juncker.   As the president of the executive branch of the EU, which has more people and a bigger economy than the US, he is one of the most powerful people in the world.   If the European Union succeeds in forming a military alliance and acquires nuclear weapons, both of which are being discussed, he could be the most powerful man in the world.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that Ignorance on both sides of the ocean could easily cause the Atlantic alliance to unravel.

This has to happen to fulfill Biblical prophecies about the coming Beast-power in Europe and the fall of the English speaking nations.

Footnote:  Headline on tonight’s BBC World News America:  Germany Rejects US Pressure For NATO Spending Rise.

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GERMANY, JAPAN PUSH TRADE PACT IN MERKEL BID TO STYMIE TRUMP          (Bloomberg)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for a concerted effort to defend free trade, expanding the list of economic powers joining together to counter the U.S. shift toward protectionism.   After clashing with President Donald Trump on economic policy at their first White House meeting, Merkel called for swift conclusion of a trade accord between Japan and the European Union.   That followed a renewed German-Chinese commitment to open markets on the eve of her trip to Washington and Merkel’s backing for a free-trade accord between the EU and Mercosur, the South American economic bloc. “Internationally, we are seeing a tendency toward protectionism and navel-gazing,” Abe said alongside Merkel during a news conference at the CeBit tech show in Hanover, Germany, on Monday.   “What we need is trade that’s both fair and free.”

The display of German-Japanese unity underscores a rift elsewhere among the world’s biggest economic powers after U.S. insistence on “fair” trade triggered conflict at a weekend meeting of Group of 20 finance chiefs in Germany.   Another potential clash looms when Trump, Abe, Merkel and the leaders of Canada, France, Italy and the U.K. meet at a Group of Seven summit in Sicily in May.   Merkel pushed back against Trump’s pledge to enact “America First” policies and drew contrast to Japan and Germany, the world’s third and fourth-biggest economies.

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THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE WORLD

CNN’s special:   “The most powerful man in the world” profiled Vladimir Putin, partly in an attempt to show why he is so paranoid when it comes to the opposition.   His critics all seem to be found dead shortly after making their criticism.   The one-hour documentary was produced by Fareed Zakaria.   It was an interesting perspective.   Putin has more power than Trump, both domestically and internationally.   Russia also has more nuclear weapons than the US.

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REAL POSSIBILITY OF 4 FAMINES AT SAME TIME

Another famine is about to tighten its grip on Somalia.   And it’s not the only crisis that aid agencies are scrambling to address.   For the first time since anyone can remember, there is a very real possibility of four famines — in Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria and Yemen — breaking out at once, endangering more than 20 million lives.

One powerful lesson from the last famine in Somalia, just six years ago, was that famines were not simply about food.   They are about something even more elemental: water.   If there was any doubt, the recent news from Somalia or Nigeria should erase it.  — Reuters.

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CANADIAN ANTI-SEMITISM

In a Friday sermon delivered at Dar Al-Arkam Mosque in Montreal, Canada, Jordanian cleric Sheikh Muhammad Bin Musa Aal Nasr cited an antisemitic hadith, according to which, on Judgment Day, the Trees and the Stones Will Call on Muslims to Kill the Jews.  The sermon was delivered on December 23, 2016, and was posted on the Mosque’s YouTube page. (MEMRI 3/31/17)

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WHAT’S GOING ON?     (Peggy Noonan, WSJ, 12/16/17, while President Obama was still in office)

“I close with a story that I haven’t seen in the mainstream press.   This week the Daily Caller’s Peter Hasson reported that recent Syrian refugees being resettled in Virginia, were sent to the state’s poorest communities.   Data from the State Department showed that almost all Virginia’s refugees since October “have been placed in towns with lower incomes and higher poverty rates, hours away from the wealthy suburbs outside of Washington, D.C.”   Of 121 refugees, 112 were placed in communities at least 100 miles from the nation’s capital.   The suburban counties of Fairfax, Loudoun and Arlington—among the wealthiest in the nation, and home to high concentrations of those who create, and populate government and the media—have received only nine refugees.”

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WORSENING SHIA-SUNNI CONFLICT

“ISIS Calls On Iranian Sunnis To Rise Up And Carry Out Attacks In Major Cities In The Country,   Warns Iran:   ‘Just As You Tasted Our Power In Iraq And Syria. , , , We Will Conquer Persia And Restore It As A Sunni Country” (MEMRI 3/28)

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MORE BRITISH BLESSINGS – WRITTEN BY AN INDIAN NATIONAL

This Quote is taken from the book The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire by H. W. Crocker (Oct 21, 2008).

The paragraph is written by Dinesh D’Souza, an Indian who now lives in the United States.

“As someone who grew up in India, I often hear people ask, ‘What have the British done for us?’  Until I read this book, I didn’t have the full answer.   And here is Crocker’s answer:   ‘Apart from roads, railways, ports, schools, a parliamentary system of government, rights, separation of powers, checks and balances, the rule of law, and the English language . . . nothing!’”

— Dinesh D’Souza, President of the King’s College and best-selling author of The Roots of Obama’s Rage

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RANSOM, Kansas — The Farm Belt is hurtling toward a milestone: Soon there will be fewer than two million farms in America for the first time since pioneers moved westward after the Louisiana Purchase.  (WSJ 2/8)

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MOST AMUSING LINE IN A TV SHOW

I don’t recommend the program, but Diane and I did watch the first episode of “Time after Time” on a Sunday night when there was no Masterpiece Theatre.   The new ABC show is based loosely (very loosely) on HG Wells’ book The Time Machine.   While showing his friends his machine in 1890, Jack the Ripper absconds in the machine to New York City in 2017, in an effort to hide  from the police who are looking for him.

After the usual Ripper murders in America’s financial capital, HG decides he needs to persuade Jack to return to Victorian London with him.   Jack responded with the following:

“Are you kidding?   In Victorian London I was a freak.   Here, I’m merely an amateur!”

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ATTITUDES HAVE CHANGED

A young manager at our local Kroger store complained to me recently that it was his birthday, yet he had to work.   He had also been required to work every day over the Thanksgiving weekend. He thought it was because he was the only manager with no children.  I suggested he start a family.   “No way.   The last thing I want is kids.”

There’s a number of young men roughly the same age at our local bank.   Every single one of them has their own apartment and is living with a girlfriend, as is the manager at Kroger.   I would assume that none of these relationships is platonic.

This illustrates a major problem that affects the western world – a low birthrate.

Previous generations believed God’s instruction:   “to go forth and multiply.”  (Genesis 1:22)

The West has a low birthrate and is making up for the short fall in people with seemingly unrestricted immigration from undeveloped countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

People from these countries will radically change our society – but few seem to care.

Other nations are preparing for war.   We see it on the news all the time.   War is fought mainly by young men.   When the time comes, will we have enough young men?

I am reminded of another Bible verse from more than 2,500 years ago.   It could be speaking to us today.   “They shall commit harlotry, but not increase;  Because they have ceased obeying the Lord.” (Hosea 4:10)

Sexual immorality is rampant, but there are few children.   Children are a blessing, but few realize that in today’s western world.

 

 

PROBLEMS FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT

Former President Clinton looked bewildered a couple of nights ago, when trying to refute accusations that his wife is part of the “Establishment.”

He asked how can she be when she’s a woman running for an office no woman has ever held.

The former president misses the point.

“The Establishment generally denotes a dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation or organization . . .  In fact, any relatively small class or group of people having control can be referred to as The Establishment . . . ”  (Wikipedia:  “The Establishment”)

Based on this definition, the Clintons are a part of the Establishment.  They have spent years promoting their liberal ideals, from abortion and same-sex marriage to big government programs, multiculturalism and political correctness.

I was amused a few days ago when a prominent female supporter of Hillary Clinton enthusiastically talked of her candidacy.  She said that if Mrs. Clinton doesn’t make it, then former Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, will run.   This would mean that Americans would have two billionaires to choose from, Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg.   What would the rest of the world think of American democracy if two billionaires were running for office?   She did not mention that Mrs. Clinton is a multi-millionaire.  Nor did she express any concern about donations made to Mrs. Clinton that are clearly a conflict of interest.

This is turning out to be the most interesting US presidential election since 1968.   At that time, I was a teenager living in England.   Britain had its own radical government at the time, the second post-war Labour government led by Harold Wilson.

It seemed like everything was changing.   Abortion and homosexuality were both legalized, while the death penalty was abolished.  There were also radical financial decisions taken, including nationalization of some industries (others had already been nationalized).  The left-wing financial decisions were reversed under Margaret Thatcher over a decade later; but the other reforms stayed the same.

Other countries were going through the same radical changes.

Fifty years later, like it or not, the liberal-leftists who have dominated the western world are now the establishment, an establishment that has clearly failed the country.

What we saw in New Hampshire was a political earthquake.  The headlines were dramatic — fittingly so:  “Sanders, Trump Stun America,” CNN declared on its website.  The American Prospect summed it up with a tidy statement:  “The Establishment Sinks.”   The look on Bill Clinton’s face took me back to 1989 when Rumania’s President Nicolai Caucescu first realized the people were rising up against him.   There was shock and horror together with bewilderment – how could the people reject me was written all over his face.

This is not an American phenomenon.  We see the same thing happening in other western countries.   “Extremists” (as far as the media is concerned) of both right and left are challenging the established center.

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Meanwhile, the following report appeared on the BBC’s website yesterday, one day after Janet Yellin’s testimony before Congress warning of the worsening international financial environment:

“Analysts said US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen’s gloomy economic assessment on Wednesday had added to investors’ worries. In testimony to Congress, she said that financial conditions in the US had become “less supportive” of growth and warned of the “increased volatility” in global financial markets.  Rabobank European strategist Emile Cardon said the worst could still lie ahead:  “The bad news in now coming from everywhere – China, Portugal, the US, the commodity sector, the banking sector.  It’s like several smaller crises could combine into one big crisis.”

It’s not just the global economy that’s a worry.

German Foreign Policy reports that we are going to see more wars this year.

BERLIN – In an article published by the leading German foreign policy journal, an influential diplomat predicts that worldwide, there will be a further increase in the number of wars and their victims, this year.  “The number of conflicts, their victims, and their refugees” has been increasing worldwide, for the past five years and this development will “most likely continue this year.”   The
journal, Internationale Politik, substantiates this assumption by presenting an overview of the current wars.  Today’s deadliest wars (are) in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and South Sudan.

When Jesus Christ was asked by His disciples what would be the sign of His Second Coming, He replied:

“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”   (Matt 24:6)

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Thursday evening, less than 24 hours ago, an individual attacked customers in a restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, with a machete, injuring four, one of whom is critical.   First reports assured people this was not terrorism; then they announced the name of the man responsible, Mohammad Barry.

Meanwhile, the Pope, on a visit to Mexico, will stand with migrants at the US border, symbolically demanding the US let more migrants in.   It’s not just the politicians who don’t get it!

 

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