Secret Meetings of G-20 Core Group to Knock Out the US Dollar

Business Insider wrote on March 27:

“The U.S. dollar has just been knocked down and forced to serve the interests of the world against the will of the American people… Based on the best information we’ve been able to obtain, it looks like the dollar has just been Shanghaied by the G-20 (the unelected, unaccountable group of 20 nations that collectively control the world monetary system). This could be the most important financial development of 2016, with enormous implications for you and your portfolio…

“This new effort to knock out the dollar was contrived in a secret meeting in Shanghai on Feb. 26… Janet Yellen from the Fed, Christine Lagarde from the IMF, Mario Draghi from the ECB and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew were all there, along with their central bank and finance ministry counterparts from Japan, China and the other BRICS…

“The main meeting of the G-20 finance ministers and central bank governors was no secret. It was conducted with much fanfare and publicity. Thousands of reporters descended on Shanghai to cover the proceedings. A side meeting of a core group consisting of the U.S., Europe, Japan, China and the IMF was a secret. This group really calls the shots…

“There’s another secret G-20 meeting on April 16, 2016. This will take place on the sidelines of the IMF spring meeting in Washington, D.C… it will go down in history as a major turning point in the international monetary system.”

Ultimately, we can expect that the US Dollar will lose in value, especially against the euro.

Demonstrations Against American Nuclear Weapons on German Soil

Deutsche Welle reported on March 28:

“More than 20,000 people gathered to participate in Germany’s ‘Easter marches’ over the holiday weekend. The annual events protest militarization and the presence of German troops in foreign countries. The numbers were an increase on the previous year in spite of the changeable weather… nationwide there were about 80 different related demonstrations and gatherings to promote peaceful resolution to conflict.

“Kristian Golla of the ‘Peace Cooperative’ network in Bonn said that strong turnout showed ‘the basic skepticism with which our society views war and military intervention.’ One event in the Eifel region of western Germany called for an end to the presence of American nuclear weapons in Germany. The Büchel air base in the Eifel received some 20 new B 61-12 atomic weapons from the US in September of last year, at the same time similar weapons were moved to bases that cooperate with the US in Aviano, Italy, and Incirlik, Turkey.

“The Easter marches began in Germany in the 1960s at the initiative [of] German Quaker pacifist Konrad Tempel. In the late 50s, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had dismissed concerns about nuclear weapons, saying they were ‘the latest development’ in military technology and their existence was keeping Germans safe…”

King of Jordan: “Turkey Is Deliberately ‘Unleashing’ Isis Terrorists into Europe.”

The Independent wrote on March 27:

“Turkey is exporting Isis-linked terrorists to Europe, according to King Abdullah of Jordan. The monarch’s remarks came in a meeting with members of the US Congress, in which he said that Islamist militants were being ‘manufactured in Turkey’ and ‘unleashed’ into Europe. He also… [reminded] the US politicians of Turkey’s alleged complicity in buying Isis oil. ‘The fact that terrorists are going to Europe is part of Turkish policy,’ said King Abdullah… [arguing] that the autocratic Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan believes in a ‘radical Islamic solution to the region’…

“The meeting was held on 11 January, but details of the King’s opinions have only just been leaked…

“Although Turkey and Jordan are officially allies, the refugee crisis has heightened tensions between the two nations. King Abdullah is understood to have been angered by the EU’s generous offer of cash and diplomatic ties in return for Turkey limiting the onward flow of refugees into the continent. At roughly 75 million, Turkey’s population is over ten times that of Jordan’s, meaning the Arab nation is hosting a proportionately greater number of refugees.”

Israel Asks Its Citizens to Leave Turkey Immediately

JTA wrote on March 28:

“Israel warned its citizens living in or visiting Turkey to leave immediately. The travel warning was issued Monday by the National Security Council Counter Terrorism Bureau, which is part of the Prime Minister’s Office. The warning, which was upgraded from a basic concrete threat to a high concrete threat, comes a week after a suicide bombing at a main shopping center in Istanbul killed three Israelis and one Iranian national. Turkish media later reported that the bomber targeted an Israeli tour group.”

Bill to Protect Sabbath Rest Proposed in Israel

Israel National News reported on March 25:

“A bill… which would extend Shabbat ‘day of rest’ benefits passed an initial vote in the Knesset on Wednesday. The proposal would protect all workers in Israel who choose not to work on Shabbat from losing their jobs, regardless of their level of religious observance. In addition, the law would prohibit employers from using discriminatory hiring practices which target workers who refuse to work on Shabbat.

“Currently, Israeli law only recognizes the rights of religious Jews to refuse work on Shabbat. Non-Jews and secular Jews may be forced by their employers to work on Shabbat, or face loss of employment. If entered into law, [the bill] would give all workers in Israel the same Shabbat ‘day of rest’ rights, enabling anyone, regardless of religion or level of observance, to claim Shabbat as a religious day of rest.”

In many European countries, no religious protection exists for the observance of God’s Sabbath. In the USA, such protection might exist on paper, but seldom in practice. That is one of the great sins this world is committing, causing the outpouring of God’s wrath on a rebellious mankind.

American “Allies” Turn Against Each Other in Syria

The Los Angeles Times wrote on March 27:

“Syrian militias armed by different parts of the U.S. war machine have begun to fight each other on the plains between the besieged city of Aleppo and the Turkish border, highlighting how little control U.S. intelligence officers and military planners have over the groups they have financed and trained in the bitter five-year-old civil war…

“The attacks by one U.S.-backed group against another come amid continued heavy fighting in Syria and illustrate the difficulty facing U.S. efforts to coordinate among dozens of armed groups that are trying to overthrow the government of President Bashar Assad, fight the Islamic State militant group and battle one another all at the same time.”

Iran—President Obama’s New Ally?

Reuters wrote on March 28:

“Iran will pursue its development of ballistic missiles despite the U.S. blacklisting of more Iranian companies linked to the program, a senior Revolutionary Guards commander said on Monday… The Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s elite fighting and security force, maintains dozens of short and medium-range ballistic missiles, the largest stock in the Middle East. It says the missiles are solely for defensive use with conventional, non-nuclear warheads…

“Iran has denied U.S. accusations that it is acting ‘provocatively’ with the missile tests, citing a long history of U.S. interventions in the Middle East – including a U.S.-engineered coup in Tehran in 1953 – and a right to self-defense.”

Cuba—President Obama’s New “Friend”?

Deutsche Welle reported on March 28:

“In a lengthy letter, the 89-year-old former Cuban leader said his country ‘has no need of gifts from the (US) empire.’ The scathing note follows a landmark visit by Obama amid a warming of ties… His 1,500 word note appeared to ignore a strengthening of relations between the two former foes…  ‘Listening to the words of the US president could give anyone a heart attack… Nobody has any illusion that the people of this noble and selfless country will surrender glory and rights and the spiritual wealth that has come through the development of education, science and culture,’ he added…

“Last week, Obama said he had come to bury the two countries’ history of Cold War hostility but questioned Cuba’s human rights record and called for democracy and greater freedoms. His visit was the first by a US president in 88 years. Although he did not meet with Fidel Castro, he did hold talks with his brother Raul Castro…”

Problems with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Platform

The website of arstechnica.com reported on March 25:

“Microsoft has apologized for the conduct of its racist, abusive machine learning chatbot, Tay. The bot, which was supposed to mimic conversation with a 19-year-old woman over Twitter, Kik, and GroupMe, was turned off less than 24 hours after going online because she started promoting Nazi ideology and harassing other Twitter users…

“[The] machine learning platform doesn’t really know what it’s talking about… Tay has no understanding; if a bunch of people tell her that the Holocaust didn’t happen, for example, she may start responding in the negative if asked if it occurred. However, that’s not because she has any understanding of what the Holocaust actually was. She just knows that the Holocaust is a proper noun or perhaps even that it refers to a specific event. Knowing what that event was and why people might lie to her about it remain completely outside the capabilities of her programming. All she knows of the event is that people tell her it didn’t happen…”

The website of wtsp.com added on March 26:

“The company said it will bring Tay back after engineers can plan better for hackers with ‘malicious intent that conflicts with our principles and values’…

“Artificial intelligence is gaining momentum as computing power continues to grow exponentially… Not everyone is thrilled with the prospect of machines gaining the ability to reason like humans. Tesla founder Elon Musk continues to warn about the rise of robots…”

When man tries to “create” artificial intelligence, he walks on a slippery slope towards having to deal with a Frankenstein monster.

De Niro Gives In to Vaccination Lobby to Suppress the Truth

The Independent wrote on March 27:

“There has been mounting pressure on Robert De Niro to withdraw an anti-vaccination documentary from the Tribeca Film Festival line-up. After days of deliberation and a statement defending the controversial film, Vaxxed: From Cover-Up To Catastrophe will no longer show at the festival.

“Previously, De Niro said of the documentary, which attempts to show a link between vaccines and autism: ‘I am not personally endorsing the film, nor am I anti-vaccination; I am only providing the opportunity for a conversation around the issue.’ However, in a more recent statement to the BBC, the actor said: ‘We have concerns with certain things in this film.’ After reviewing Vaxxed with fellow festival organisers, as well as scientists, they concluded that the film does not contribute to the discussion over vaccinations in the way they’d like it [to].

“Vaxxed is directed by Andrew Wakefield, a former British doctor whose 1998 study linking MMR vaccinations and autism was discredited and retracted from medical journal The Lancet… Wakefield, who has previously described it as a ‘whistle-blower documentary’, said in a statement following the decision that he and producer Del Bigtree [have] ‘just witnessed yet another example of the power of corporate interests censoring free speech, art and truth’.

“In recent years, many actors have taken controversial stances on vaccinations, including Jim Carrey who has campaigned against vaccine legislation on numerous occasions.”

 It is shocking how “scientists” are able to suppress real concerns about vaccinations to manipulate a gullible public.

Fight Between FBI and APPLE to Continue

CNN reported on March 29:

“The Department of Justice says the FBI has accessed the iPhone used by one of the gunmen in the San Bernardino terrorist shooting. Law enforcement officials were able to break into the phone used by Syed Farook with the help of an unnamed third party. Government officials did not go into detail about what was found on the phone. ‘The FBI has now successfully retrieved the data stored on the San Bernardino terrorist’s iPhone and therefore no longer requires the assistance from Apple required by this Court Order,’ DOJ spokeswoman Melanie Newman said in a statement. The DOJ is dropping the case against Apple, since it no longer needs the company’s help.

“Farook was one of two shooters in the December 2015 attack that left 14 people dead, and the government has been trying to force Apple to help bypass the phone’s security features. Apple has declined to help, saying it would compromise the security of all iPhone users. The company has argued that law enforcement officials don’t understand the consequences of creating a backdoor…

“The fact that the DOJ was able to successfully access the phone without Apple’s help is bad news for the tech giant because it suggests Apple’s encryption technology is not as advanced as once thought. In a statement, Apple said the case ‘should have never been brought.’ It reiterated its objection to the FBI’s demand that the company build a backdoor into the iPhone, a step it said would have ‘set a dangerous precedent.’ However, Apple said it plans to continue to help police with other criminal investigations. For instance, the company currently provides police who have warrants access to customer iCloud accounts…

“Apple did not address the hack specifically in its statement Monday. However, previously the company said this vulnerability was consistent with its fear all along — that it was in an ‘arms race’ with people looking to exploit bugs in its software. A law enforcement official… refused to say whether the FBI will disclose this hacking method to Apple so the company can protect future phones from being hacked this way.

“Normally, in a situation like this, the FBI must hold a high-level meeting with the president’s National Security Council to discuss whether to tip off Apple about the hacking method, according to a senior Obama administration official. Hacks are only possible through vulnerabilities in technology, and the same method used by the FBI could be used by foreign governments to hack Americans’ iPhones.

“The FBI should have that discussion immediately, said Ross Schulman, senior policy counsel at the Open Technology Institute, a think tank. ‘The bug is, so far as we know, widely distributed and can give complete access to a device that so many of us rely on daily. Those are great reasons to tell Apple so they can fix the problem,’ he said. Several experts closely watching this case say the fight between the FBI and Apple will only continue elsewhere. Both sides are already waging a similar battle over a criminal’s iPhone in New York City.  ‘This case was never about just one phone,’ said Alex Abdo, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. ‘Unfortunately, today’s news appears to be just a delay of an inevitable fight over whether the FBI can force Apple to undermine the security of its own products.’”

Heidi Cruz to be Feared the Most after Hillary Clinton?

News with Views wrote on March 26:

“While I am aware that Heidi Nelson Cruz apparently does suffer from deep depression, just after Hillary Rodham Clinton, she is the next person to be feared the most in this presidential race for 2016…

“In an article written by Jesse Byrnes for The Hill that was released today on March 25, 2016, under the title ‘Trump aide fulfills threat to “spill the beans” on Heidi Cruz,’ he reports on the recent interview on MSNBC that Steve Kornacki had with Katrina Pierson who is an aide for Donald Trump…

“According to Katrina Pierson, ‘Spilling the beans is quite simple when it comes to Heidi Cruz. She is a [George W.] Bush operative; she worked for the architect of NAFTA, which has killed millions of jobs in this country; she was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations who—in Sen. Cruz’s own words, called – a nest of snakes that seeks to undermine national sovereignty; and she’s been working for Goldman Sachs, the same global bank that Ted Cruz left off of his financial disclosure. Heidi’s entire career has been spent working against everything Ted Cruz says that he stands for.’

“According to the Council on Foreign Relations when Heidi Cruz was on the CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force on the Future of North America in 2004, she served at the White House under Dr. Condoleezza Rice as the Economic Director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council as Director of the Latin America Office at the U.S Treasury Department, and as Special Assistant to Ambassador Robert B. Zoellick, then U.S. Trade Representative. Previously, Heidi Cruz had been employed with J.P. Morgan at New York.

“Heidi Cruz had contributed to the writing of Building a North American Community, which was published by the Council on Foreign Relations and released in May of 2005. Its goals… were designed to establish a supranational government that would destroy our nation’s sovereignty and supersede our Constitution as the forthcoming North American Union with its own currency call the Amero. The proposed ‘North American Border Pass’ would essentially ‘erase’ our international boundaries with Canada and Mexico. To ‘Establish a Common Security Perimeter’ for North America and ‘Increase Labor within North America’ would weaken our national defense because we would no longer have any authority or control over who enters Canada or Mexico from overseas or elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere…”

The Controversial and Unpopular World View of Donald Trump

The New York Post wrote on March 26:

“Donald Trump wants US allies to ante up if they want to continue under the ‘cloak of American protection,’ according to his first detailed comments on his foreign-policy platform. ‘We’re not being reimbursed for the kind of tremendous service that we’re performing by protecting various countries,’ the Republican front-runner was quoted as saying.

‘Trump said he would boycott oil from Saudi Arabia and other allies unless they provide troops or funds to fight ISIS. ‘If Saudi Arabia was without the cloak of American protection… I don’t think it would be around,’ he told The New York Times.

“Trump is open to removing US forces from Japan and South Korea if they did not take on the cost of housing and feeding troops on American bases there, the report said. He argued that it is getting expensive to keep ‘defending the world.’…

“He vowed to renegotiate the Iran deal to extend restrictions on the country’s ability to build nuclear weapons while also allowing Iran to buy planes and other goods made in the United States. ‘We gave them $150 billion, and they can’t spend it in our country,’ he said.

“The United States, in Trump’s view, has lost power economically and militarily for decades. He cited the Teddy Roosevelt era as the period when America’s might peaked… Trump vowed to restore the country’s role as a global superpower.

“A cornerstone of the Trump doctrine is his ‘unpredictability’ in dealing with foreign leaders. He defended US surveillance of allies like Israel and Germany, saying, ‘They’re spying against us.’ Trump said he would allow Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear programs instead of depending on America for protection from China and North Korea. He wouldn’t rule out using nuclear weapons against an adversary, saying he would use nukes as an ‘absolute last step.’

“But Trump held out hope he could facilitate the greatest deal of them all — lasting peace in Israel. ‘I would have a better chance than anybody of making a deal,’ he said.”

JTA wrote on March 28:

“Discussing the Iran nuclear deal, Trump expressed surprise that sanctions remaining in place keep Iran from spending money released in the deal in the United States… David Sanger, a New York Times reporter, told Trump that sanctions in place kept Iran from trading to the United States. The Obama administration is keeping sanctions in place and in some cases adding new ones to maintain leverage against Iran in its backing of terrorism and its human rights abuses.

“‘Uh, excuse me?’ Trump said, apparently unaware of the sanctions. ‘So how stupid is that? We give them the money, and we now say, “Go buy Airbus instead of Boeing,” right? So how stupid is that?’”

The New York Times added on March 27:

“Mr. Trump repeated [his recent suggestions that United States pull back from NATO unless other nations pay more of the alliance’s costs] and called NATO ‘obsolete’ in the fight against terrorism.

“Mr. Trump was also asked if he would rule out internment camps for American Muslims – an idea he has never proposed, though he has argued for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country if they are not American citizens. ‘I would rule it out, but we would have to be very vigilant,’ Mr. Trump said…”

The Daily Mail added on March 28:

“Donald Trump has claimed that England is not a ‘safe place’ in the wake of the Brussels terrorist attacks. The leading Republican Presidential candidate said that England was among the countries which have become ‘weak’ and cannot protect themselves. [Trump also said that America is no longer a safe place for Americans.]

“Mr Trump said Europe had ‘very, very severe’ problems with terrorism and that it needed better law enforcement…  Mr Trump’s comments on Britain risk a backlash similar to that he received in December when he claimed that police in London were ‘afraid for their own lives’ because some areas of the capital are so radicalised.”

Trump Reverses Statement on Women and Abortion after Outcry

CNN reported on March 31:

“Donald Trump scrambled to clarify his position on abortion Wednesday after he said women who undergo the procedure should face ‘some form of punishment’ should the practice be outlawed.

“Several hours later — after widespread condemnation from Trump’s presidential rivals and even leading anti-abortion groups — he walked back his remarks, releasing a statement in which he said that women who obtain abortions are victims and that doctors who perform the service are the ones who should be punished. ‘If Congress were to pass legislation making abortion illegal and the federal courts upheld this legislation, or any state were permitted to ban abortion under state and federal law, the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman,’ Trump said. ‘The woman is a victim in this case as is the life in her womb. My position has not changed — like Ronald Reagan, I am pro-life with exceptions.’

“… anti-abortion groups swiftly criticized Trump’s comments. March for Life released the toughest statement… calling Trump’s remarks ‘completely out of touch with the pro-life movement.’ ‘Being pro-life means wanting what is best for the mother and the baby. Women who choose abortion often do so in desperation and then deeply regret such a decision. No pro-lifer would ever want to punish a woman who has chosen abortion. This is against the very nature of what we are about,’ the president of the group’s education and defense fund, Jeanne Marcini, said in a statement.

“The National Right to Life Committee noted in a statement that it has never supported penalties against women who undergo abortions. The Susan B. Anthony List chalked up Trump’s comments to his recent opposition to abortion rights and said punishments should only be dished out to ‘the abortionist.’

“Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton retweeted an NBC News reporter, adding, ‘Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse. Horrific and telling.’… Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted, ‘Your Republican frontrunner, ladies and gentlemen. Shameful.’…

“Ohio Gov. John Kasich told MSNBC, ‘Of course, women shouldn’t be punished for having an abortion.’ And Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Trump’s comment ‘demonstrated that he hasn’t seriously thought through the issues, and he’ll say anything just to get attention.’ ‘On the important issue of the sanctity of life, what’s far too often neglected is that being pro-life is not simply about the unborn child; it’s also about the mother — and creating a culture that respects her and embraces life,’ Cruz said. ‘Of course we shouldn’t be talking about punishing women; we should affirm their dignity and the incredible gift they have to bring life into the world.’”

Please view our new special StandingWatch program, titled, “Why ALL Candidates are WRONG on Abortion!” 

Glenn Beck: “‘No Real Christian’ Would Vote for Trump”

Newsmax wrote on March 25:

“Conservative commentator Glenn Beck said he believes supporting Donald Trump for president goes against the tenets of Christian faith. ‘No Christian, no real Christian — I don’t mean a judgmental Christian, I mean somebody who is living their faith — no real Christian says, “I want that guy. That guy is the one for me,”‘ said Beck on TheBlaze’s ‘Glenn Beck Program.’… If Americans are following Christian values, Beck asked, ‘Then why are we in so much trouble?’…

“Beck, a Mormon, is a supporter of Ted Cruz’s campaign for president.  At a campaign stop for Cruz in Provo, Utah, Beck said he believes Cruz is a fulfillment of a Mormon prophecy, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. That prophecy, according to Charisma News refers to the U.S. Constitution ‘hanging by a thread,’ and a ‘White Horse’ coming in to save it. Although the prophecy is not part of Church of Latter-Day Saints canon, it is believed by many Mormons.”

It is true that no real Christian should vote for Donald Trump. However, no real Christian should vote for Ted Cruz either, or John Kasich, Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, or any other candidate running for the presidential office.

Allegations of Cruz’ Extramarital Affairs

Newsmax reported on March 25:

“Ted Cruz is angrily denying a National Enquirer report that he engaged in extramarital affairs — and is blaming Donald Trump for the publication of the allegations… The Enquirer — which has brought down other politicians with stories about their affairs, including former Sens. John Edwards and Gary Hart — said Cruz’s alleged trysts stand to ‘destroy’ his presidential hopes. The Enquirer article also showed pictures of five women it said Cruz had allegedly played around with. Their faces are pixilated.

“Trump, in a Facebook posting, denied any involvement in the Enquirer story, and then went on to taunt his rival about its accuracy… The Enquirer has officially endorsed Trump for president…

“In its expose, The Enquirer quotes Roger Stone, a veteran GOP political consultant who advised Trump early in his campaign, as saying rumors of affairs have been ‘swirling around Cruz for some time.’ Reached by USA Today on Friday, Stone insisted: ‘I played no role in the placement of the story.’”

The Daily Mail added on March 27 that “Rumors surrounding Ted Cruz and allegations he cheated on his wife with five women are believed to have steamed [sic] from Marco Rubio’s camp – not Donald Trump’s…”

While the National Enquirer is a mass tabloid of questionable reputation and veracity, it must be said that these kinds of allegations have destroyed prior politicians and candidates for public office. As the Newsmax article points out, some of those allegations of marital infidelity were finally proven to be correct, while other allegations could not be proven, but they nevertheless forced the particular candidates to step down. For example, Herman Cain had to suspend his presidential campaign in December of 2011 when faced with numerous (unproven) allegations of marital infidelity.

In addition, Daily Mail reported on March 28:

“[Ted Cruz] declined to answer a question on Monday about whether he has ever been unfaithful to his wife Heidi… instead of making a blanket declaration that he has been faithful during the entirety of his 14-year marriage – a move that would effectively end the vicious news cycle – Cruz stood silently as campaign surrogate Carly Fiorina leapt in to intercept the question and change the subject…

“DailyMail.com directed the question a second time at Cruz when Fiorina had finished. ‘Senator I’m sorry, this is a very serious question about your character,’ the second question came. ‘Will you just – if the answer is, “Yes, I’ve always been faithful to my wife,” can you just say so please?’ His practised answer stuck to the more limited denial that the National Enquirer story was false, calling it ‘complete garbage.’”

Dr. Ben Carson: True Christianity Under Worldwide Attack

Breitbart wrote on March 25:

“Asked if he thought the media took religious issues seriously during his time running for the GOP nomination, former Republican presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson told Breitbart News… they didn’t — and many would be happy to see Christianity vanish off the face of the Earth… ‘The Bible, they believe, is largely fantasy — and the whole concept of God,’ added Carson, pointing out that he felt mocked by the media several times for his belief in God…

“Asked if he thought there was a global war against Christians going on today, Carson said yes. ‘Christians are caught between secularism, which is on the rise and doesn’t like to be reminded of its negative aspects, and between Islamic Jihadists, who want to dominate the religious scene,’ he said. ‘As Christians,’ continued Carson, ‘we’re caught between a rock and a hard place and have to recognize, first of all, that we are under attack…’

“Faulting the U.S. government’s efforts, Carson said: ‘They for the most part won’t even acknowledge what’s going on with the Christians and the Yazidis and all the various people around the world. It’s like it doesn’t exist. They don’t seem to recognize that these are not isolated incidents that won’t find their way into our culture, as well.’”

Jesuit University Prohibits “Debate” Same Sex Marriages and Suspends Disagreeing Professor

Breitbart reported on March 29:

“John McAdams, a conservative professor at Marquette University, has been suspended after criticising a fellow lecturer for refusing to allow same-sex marriage to be debated in class. The suspension will be extended indefinitely unless McAdams ‘admits his guilt’ within two weeks.

“In a blog post, McAdams drew attention to an incident in which a student was told… by instructor Cheryl Abbate to leave her philosophy class if he wished to debate same-sex marriage or adoption by gay couples.

“Then things deteriorated further as the student said that it was his right as an American citizen to make arguments against gay marriage. Abbate replied that ‘you don’t have a right in this class to make homophobic comments.’ She further said she would ‘take offense’ if the student said that women can’t serve in particular roles.”

This is just incredible! Or, is it?

Shocking Decision in Germany

The Local wrote on March 30:

“Germany may not grant equal marriage rights to same-sex couples, but its laws do protect them against discrimination.

“A man has been slapped with a steep fine by a Cologne court after he refused to rent a villa to a same-sex couple. The landlord must pay €1,700 in compensation to the couple, a regional court said on Tuesday. The man regularly rented out his personal villa to newly-weds to earn a bit more cash, but when he learned that the couple in question were gay, he refused to sign a contract with them.

“The court charged the man with discrimination, stating that his refusal to rent to them was illegal and violated German law concerning equal treatment, calling it ‘discrimination based on sexual orientation’. The court could not find a substantive reason to justify the discrimination, according to Legal Tribune Online.

“Nor did the judge side with the defendant’s argument that renting to the couple would conflict with his ‘sense of morality and decency,’ saying that there was no reason, even if he was also using the villa, that he should be more offended by a gay couple than by a straight one.

“While Germany is ranked fairly low among its western European counterparts for gay rights, according to EU-funded Rainbow Europe research, German law does protect individuals from discrimination due to their sexual orientation in the workplace and in access to goods and services. Same-sex marriage is not legal in Germany, though civil partnerships are, and gay couples are not granted equal rights, for example on adoption.”

The trend continues to “protect” sinful conduct of homosexual couples by violating the rights of heterosexual people. For the judge to say that there was no “substantial reason” for refusing renting to a gay couple shows the extent to which landlords are being forced to act against their convictions. It is hoped that this wrong decision will be overturned on appeal and that it will not serve as precedence for other cases… as this may force landlords to refuse renting out their place to anyone.

Nuclear War Likely in Europe

Reuters wrote on March 19:

“The East-West standoff over the Ukraine crisis has brought the threat of nuclear war in Europe closer than at any time since the 1980s, a former Russian foreign minister [Igor Ivanov] warned on Saturday… While Russia and the United States have cut their nuclear arsenals, the pace is slowing. As of January 2015, they had… over 7,000 nuclear warheads each, about 90 percent of world stocks…

“In remarks that are likely to alarm European and NATO diplomats seeking a political solution to the separatist conflict in Ukraine that has killed more than 9,000 people since April 2014, Ivanov also said Europe and Russia have little chance of a broader reconciliation… adding that Russia could not be the eastern flank of a ‘failed greater Europe’ [and] that Russia’s destiny was now as the leader of a greater Eurasia stretching from Belarus to the Chinese border.”

The Bible prophesies that, ultimately, a nuclear war will break out between a powerful European Empire and a strong Russia in collaboration with other Far Eastern nations.

Historic Bridge Between Russia and Crimea?

Daily Mail reported on March 18:

“Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to ‘hang’ an official in Crimea if a bridge between the illegally annexed region and Russia is not completed. The former KGB officer was visiting the region on the second anniversary of the occupation of the peninsula (on March 16, 2014)  which is also claimed by Ukraine. The international community condemned the Russian invasion of Crimea and has subjected Moscow to a range of economic sanctions…

“The Russian president told reporters at the construction site about the ‘historic mission’ of the planned 12-mile long bridge… According to the Tass news agency, Putin claimed the first plans to build a bridge between the Taman and Crimean peninsulas [were] attempted under Tsar Nicholas II in 1910, but the First World War stopped the construction. Soviet engineers attempted another bridge which was abandoned at the outbreak of the Second World War.

“Putin claimed: ‘Nazi invaders tried to build a bridge here. Their intention was to build a bridge that would last for decades and the Russian command took a decision not to bomb this section to spare what had been done.’ However, this bridge was destroyed by ice. He claimed: ‘Our predecessors understood the importance of this bridge between Crimea and the Caucasus and have been trying to implement this project. Let us hope we will be the ones to fulfill this historic mission…

“Putin’s determination to build a bridge linking Crimea with Russia is regarded as confirmation he has no intention [of] returning the area to Ukraine… cities around Russia prepared to celebrate the second anniversary of what Moscow calls the reunification of Crimea, which was part of Russia until 1954…

“Putin’s approval rating among Russians is at its highest in four years and 95 percent of Russians support Crimea’s annexation…

“Building the bridge, at a cost of £2.12 billion, and supporting Crimea will impose additional burdens on Russia’s shrinking state budget, which has been hammered by a collapse in global oil prices – the country’s main export… ‘The annexation of Crimea was an obvious mistake, which the Kremlin and the majority of Russian people will not recognise for a long time. But we continue to pay for it,’ Russian business daily Vedomosti wrote in an editorial on Friday…”

More than 450,000 Western Soldiers Needed in the Middle East

Daily Mail wrote on March 18:

“Last week in Washington, I met an old friend who is one of the smartest strategy wonks I know… During our conversation, he offered some speculations about what could happen to our world over the next decade or two which made my hair stand on end.

“He predicts that the seismic turbulence in the Middle East will continue, and indeed worsen, unless or until the West is willing to commit stabilisation forces to the region. He calculates that an army of the order of magnitude of 450,000 men would be necessary, to have any chance of success…

“The most obvious lesson of history is that events and threats always take us by surprise. Consider the shocks we have experienced in modern times. Almost nobody expected the Irish Troubles; the Argentine invasion of the Falklands; the collapse of the Soviet Union; the dramatic rise of Muslim extremism; the 9/11 attacks in New York and 7/7 bombings in London; the global banking disaster of 2007-8; the break up of the Middle East that began with the 2003 Iraq invasion…

“Everything that has happened since shows that Fukuyama was as wrong as could be. Across large swathes of the globe, authoritarian regimes flourish like the green bay tree. Democracy has never looked rockier, even in the United States. My think-tank friend in Washington observed last week: ‘Democracy only works where there is a broad consensus about the distribution of wealth and power.’ And it is because this consensus faces unprecedented stresses in consequence of migration in Europe, that he believes some factions may resort to violence, even outright war.

“It seems foolish to dismiss this warning out of hand. The threat posed by mass population movement is huge and intractable… 77 million Turks will have the right to travel all the way to Calais unhindered…

“The entire Middle East is in a ferment, and it is impossible to see any reason why peace should be restored any time soon…

“The principal charge against Europe’s leaders today is that none of them… has begun to come clean with us about the enormity of the challenge. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared a towering figure until August, when she made her disastrous unilateral commitment to open her country’s doors.”

The Bible tells us: When they say, “Peace, Peace,” there will be no Peace.

Israel Helped in Overthrowing Egypt’s Morsi

Global Research wrote on March 18:

“Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon admitted in his speech at the annual AIPAC conference, the largest Zionist lobby supporting Israel in the US, that the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi and the installation of Egyptian President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi was planned, in cooperation with generals in the Egyptian and Gulf armies and intelligence agencies… [He] also explicitly said: ‘We decided to allow General Al-Sisi, who was the defence minister at the time, to take over power by mobilising the army in order to become a president. The West should consider this of strategic interest for them as well.’

“This is not the first testimony made by the Israeli occupation’s generals and rabbis regarding the need to keep Al-Sisi as president of Egypt in order to serve Israel’s interests. The archive of relations between the two countries is full of flattery and statements of complete support for this government…”

For the future relationship between Egypt and Israel, please read our free booklet, “Middle Eastern and African Nations in Bible Prophecy.”

Obama and Cameron at Odds over Libya

The Daily Mail wrote on March 20:

“Obama slammed European leaders [including Cameron] in a major foreign policy interview [regarding Libya.]… Mr Cameron… said ‘everyone has to take responsibility’ for the failure to stop the north African nation slipping into chaos, becoming a gateway for the migrant crisis and foothold for ISIS on Europe’s doorstep…

“The remarkable insight into the US President’s critical view of Mr Cameron’s foreign policy revealed Mr Obama believed Britain and France were too happy to rely on the US to deal with conflicts on Europe’s doorstep. And he warned Mr Cameron last summer that the ‘special relationship’ between Britain and America would be lost if he refused to commit the UK to spending the Nato target of 2 per cent of GDP on defence… Mr Obama said he wanted Mr Cameron and the then French President Nicolas Sarkozy to take charge of the campaign to oust Libyan dictator Colonel Gaddafi in the spring of 2011 instead of relying on the US acting ‘unilaterally’…

“He even went as far as describing the likes of Britain and France as ‘free riders,’ adding later that he had told Mr Cameron that ‘free riders aggravate me’ when he had told the PM: ‘You have to pay your fair share’… In a damning assessment of Mr Cameron’s record in Libya, Mr Obama said bluntly that the intervention ‘didn’t work’…

“Mr Obama… admitted it had been a mistake to trust Mr Cameron and Mr Sarkozy. ‘When I go back and I ask myself what went wrong, there’s room for criticism, because I had more faith in the Europeans, given Libya’s proximity, being invested in the follow-up,’ Mr Obama said…

“In the interview, Mr Obama also cited Britain as a ‘major factor’ in his decision not to enforce the ‘red line’ on the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime. The President called off at the last minute a planned attack in response to the gassing as he decided to refer the issue to a vote in Congress. Mr Obama said: ‘A… major factor was the failure of Cameron to obtain the consent of his parliament.’”

The Controversial Demands of Germany’s AfD

Daily Mail wrote on March 20:

“The far right party which made huge gains in Germany’s regional elections is planning broad new policies designed to crack down on Islamic practices. Among the measures Alternative for Germany (AfD) hopes to ratify are bans on mosque minarets, women wearing burqas in public and the Jewish and Muslim practice of male circumcision.

“The strong gains made by the anti-immigration party in three German state elections last Sunday stunned Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party… It emerged last week that German magazine Compact, which espouses the AfD views, has seen a rise in popularity as it shares the party’s ideology… Some of its recent headlines include Asylum Chaos, Dictatorship Merkel, Vote Her Out, The Better Chancellor – a reference to AfD co-leader Frauke Petry – and Fair Game Woman, an allusion to sexual assaults by North African migrants…

“Compact editor-in-chief Juergen Elsaesser, an outspoken fan of Russian President Vladimir Putin, argues that Petry would make a better chancellor than Merkel…”

Red warning signs should go up, when reading all of this.

The Netherlands’ Geert Wilders Faces Another Trial for “Hate Speech”

Deutsche Welle reported on March 18:

“The leader of the right-wing anti-immigration Freedom Party, Geert Wilders, faces trial for 2014 election campaign comments about Moroccans. Meanwhile, his party leads the polls with elections due within a year. The charges date back to the 2014 European election campaign, in which he repeatedly called for ‘fewer Moroccans’ in the Netherlands. At one rally, he asked supporters if they wanted more or fewer, prompting chants of ‘Fewer! Fewer!’ Wilders smiled, and responded: ‘We’ll take care of that.’

“The prosecution argues that this constitutes hate speech, saying that this case against Wilders is stronger than a previous one, in which his comments pertained to the religion of Islam, not a specific group of people…

“Koen Vossen, a lecturer for the political science department at the University of Nijmegen… [states that] Wilders is effectively arguing that he was making a policy pledge. Take his proposals to send criminals with dual nationality back to their home countries, plus reduced migration from Islamic countries, and the upshot for the Netherlands would be fewer Moroccans…

“Treading this fine linguistic line is something of a trademark of Wilders’ politics. With his Freedom Party (PVV) currently leading the polls in the Netherlands, and elections due within the year, the 52-year-old also said recently that if his party were excluded from the next ruling coalition, then his supporters would not tolerate this and might revolt. ‘So then, if people attack him, saying he’s calling for revolution, he replies: “No, listen to what I said. I don’t want there to be a revolt, I said that it might happen if people exclude me from the coalition,’” Vossen explains. ‘He is very good at this: always making remarks that are very controversial, evoking lots of anger, discussion and media attention; but at the same time, it’s always possible to defend them. That’s what he’s doing now, in court, and I think that it will be really difficult to convict him.’…

“Certainly, the trial has not yet hurt Wilders’ approval ratings – with his PVV party polling 10 points clear of any other political grouping in the country. Conservative Prime Minister Marc Rutte, currently in a ‘grand coalition’ with historical rivals the Social Democrats (PvdA), has until March 2017 to call elections; Vossen believes the established parties will wait as long as possible, hoping for a change in the political wind. ‘The refugee crisis was extremely inconvenient for the government,’ he notes, saying Wilders has moved his rhetoric further to the right in recent months, not unlike Germany’s AfD…”

Some of the statements regarding Geert Wilders bear an obvious resemblance to Donald Trump. However, the arguments of the prosecution are ridiculous, which does not help anyone. Claiming that Wilders’ comments, as quoted in the article, would constitute hate speech, is simply preposterous. On top of it, it was reported that many of the prosecutions’ affidavits of alleged witnesses were “fake”; that they were drafted by the police and others; and that they were signed by “witnesses” who did not even speak the native language. Sadly, these tactics and show trials will only raise Wilders’ popularity in the Netherlands.

Pope Francis’ Address—Quite a Stretch

The Associated Press wrote on March 20:

“Pope Frances has blessed palm fronds and olive branches held by faithful in St. Peter’s Square as Holy Week ceremonies begin at the Vatican.

“The pontiff in his Palm Sunday homily lamented what he called the ‘indifference’ of all those who don’t want to take on the responsibility of deciding the destiny of refugees flooding into Europe. He offered a comparison to what happened before Jesus’ crucifixion, when local authorities washed their hands of his fate and passed the decision on to others.”

However, that is not at all what the Bible says.

Migrant Deal Between the EU and Turkey

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 19:

“The EU and Turkey have sealed a deal to end the migrant flow… All migrants arriving illegally on European shores from this Sunday on are to be returned to transit country Turkey, starting on April 4…

“From Sunday on, the EU may ship any migrant arriving in Europe via the Aegean Sea back to Turkey… In return for any Syrian refugees the EU ships back from Greece to Turkey, the EU will take in one Syrian refugee currently in Turkey. This number, however, is to be capped at 72,000…

“The European Union has agreed to speed up talks concerning Turkey’s EU membership, meeting a key Turkish demand. However… Turkey had requested that five so-called chapters of the EU accession talks be opened, but the EU has merely agreed to open one. That chapter – on budget and financial issues – is relatively less important than the rest…

“The EU remains cagey about Turkey’s demand that all visa restrictions on its citizens traveling to the Schengen passport-free travel zone be lifted by the end of June…

“Ankara had wanted an additional 3 billion euros ($3.33 billion) to better care for Syrian refugees, on top of the 3 billion euros already pledged by the EU in the fall. But the EU has only said it will ‘speed up’ the disbursement of these funds, and has vaguely held out the prospect of making more money available…

“Resettling refugees has proven a very thorny issue among EU member states. So far, they have only committed to taking in 18,000 people. To fulfill the EU concession to take in up to 72,000 refugees from Turkey, a further 54,000 places will have to be found throughout the EU. Hungary and Slovakia have made it clear that these will not be found in their countries…

“Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said Greece needed some 2,000 additional lawyers and judges to deal with asylum requests and returns to Turkey, but he said his country could only muster 270… Human rights organizations fear there will be mass returns of migrants without a fair and individual assessment of asylum requests. After the deal was announced, NGO Oxfam called it a ‘further step down the path of inhumanity.’ Amnesty International echoed the harsh criticism.”

Immoral and Illegal

In a related article, Deutsche Welle raised in its article of March 19 the “illegal” aspect of the deal:

“The EU has finally agreed on its elusive goal: a European solution to the refugee crisis. And it turns out to be the Turkish solution that Chancellor Merkel came up with as a last political resort…

“But what a price Europe is paying for this deal. It effectively outsources the protection and care of the majority of refugees from the Middle East to Turkey. On paper, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will commit to keeping international legal obligations and respecting the rights of refugees in accordance with the Geneva Convention. But since when is the autocrat in Ankara known for keeping his promises?…

“The EU, however, will have lost all leverage should Turkey begin to push people back into Syria or Iraq – or if it leaves them begging and starving in the streets of Izmir and Istanbul… the Europeans will be mere onlookers in this drama… Sultan Erdogan… ridicules all admonishments to respect freedom of the press, opposition rights and demands to restart peace talks with the Kurds…

“Europe… is turning itself into a fortress that will be inaccessible to large numbers of refugees… Apart from all the practical problems of implementing this deal and its precarious legal standing, the pictures of Syrian refugees stuck in Turkey’s border regions or Iranians and Afghans looking in vain for protection will come to haunt us. The criticism of human rights organizations holds true: This deal is dangerous, illegal and inhumane.”

The Guardian added on March 19:

“Human rights organisations have hailed a ‘dark day for Europe’ after a controversial deal between Turkey and the European Union aiming to stem the number of refugees fleeing across the Aegean Sea was reached in Brussels… Human Rights Watch condemned the situation as a ‘new low’ and said the proposed conditions put the ‘very principle of international protection for those fleeing war and persecution at stake’…

“Save the Children said that almost 90 per cent of Syrians and 80 per cent of Iraqis have their asylum application granted, making any division on the basis of nationality ‘arbitrary and illegal’. The UN raised similar concerns, saying ‘blanket returns’ would not be consistent with international or European law.

“Amnesty International’s UK director, Kate Allen, said: ‘This is a dark day for the Refugee Convention, a dark day for Europe and a dark day for humanity… It’s absolutely shameful to see leaders seeking to abandon their legal obligations. Forcing refugees back into the hands of the very smugglers they just came from so they can have another go at exploiting them is obviously madness. There’s no way anyone should herald this as a solution.’

“The Overseas Development Institute, which has conducted research on why refugees choose to migrate, warned that the deal is ‘unlikely to work’ to stop the crisis. Marta Foresti, the think-tank’s Director of Governance and Security, said: ‘Our research shows refugees and migrants do not make the decision to leave their home lightly, are willing to take significant risks and will not be deterred by the policies and restrictions of EU countries. Those excluded from the deal will continue to try different, more dangerous routes if the border between Turkey and Greece is shut to them. The EU has failed to provide a humane or pragmatic response to the crisis, what is now needed is leadership at the global level.’”

Hillary Clinton’s Email Debacle Won’t Go Away that Easily

The New York Post wrote on March 20:

“FBI chief James Comey and his investigators are increasingly certain that presidential nominee Hillary Clinton violated laws in handling classified government information through her private email server, career agents say. Some expect him to push for charges, but he faces a formidable obstacle: the political types in the Obama White House who view a Clinton presidency as a third Obama term. With that, agents have been spreading the word, largely through associates in the private sector, that their boss is getting stonewalled, despite uncovering compelling evidence that Clinton broke the law.

“Exactly what that evidence is… has not been disclosed… as FBI director, Comey can only recommend charges to the hacks in the Obama Justice Department. Indeed, many law enforcement officials who know the FBI chief and the bureau’s inner workings believe the evidence would have to be overwhelming for Comey to even recommend charges, much less for DOJ to pursue them… Just how close Comey is to any recommendation… is difficult to know. But agents believe the probe is nearing an end. A State Department staffer who set up Clinton’s email server, for instance, was recently granted immunity from prosecution to provide Comey’s team with evidence…

“Most officials know private email servers are easier to hack into than secure government servers. They also know that even documents not labeled ‘classified’ may be top secret. That’s why they’re supposed to be sent only through government accounts. Those who don’t follow those rules, like former CIA Director David Petraeus, have faced consequences. Another matter for Comey & Co.: whether Clinton comingled her official State Department business with her role at the Clinton Foundation, and whether she wiped clean messages that show her using her office at State for foundation work.

“Law enforcement sources also say Comey’s record as a prosecutor shows he has zero tolerance for such abuses… FBI sources say [Comey] has no backing from President Obama and Attorney General Loretta Lynch to recommend charges against the former secretary, since a Clinton presidency may be the best chance to preserve the Obama legacy. That leaves Comey in a bind: Does he do what is politically expedient and deny the reality that Clinton’s email server activities violated the law, or follow the evidence to wherever it takes him?”

Bill Clinton Slams Barack Obama

The American Mirror wrote on March 21:

“Bill Clinton is either losing it, or he’s ramping up his attacks on President Obama. Neither is good news for Hillary Clinton. During a speech in Spokane, Washington on Monday, Clinton seemed to tear down Obama to boost his wife.

“‘Literally from the time I met her till we talked yesterday, she is the best change maker I have ever known… if you believe we can all rise together, if you believe we’ve finally come to the point where we can put the awful legacy of the last eight years behind us… you should vote for her,’ Clinton said.”

Hillary Clinton will not be too happy about her husband’s statements.

US Democrats in Germany Back Sanders over Hillary

The Local wrote on March 21:

“The majority of American Democrats living in Germany voted for Bernie Sanders in a global primary held this month, showing greater success for the senator abroad than he’s having Stateside. Sanders secured roughly 69 percent of the 2,917 votes cast in Germany, compared to 27.5 percent for Hillary Clinton… The Vermont senator also won with a clear majority worldwide at 69 percent of the vote…

“The group will send 13 delegates and eight super-delegates this year to the Democratic National Convention, which is more than the state of Wyoming’s total of 18. Sanders picked up nine pledged delegates in the global primary, while Clinton secures an additional four delegates.”

Trump a Danger for World’s Economy and Security?

NBC News reported on March 17:

“A British research organization has warned that a Donald Trump presidency could have a dangerous impact on the world economy, increasing the potential of Islamic terror attacks and of a trade war with Mexico and China.

“The Economist Intelligence Unit released its updated global risk assessment, ranking the election of Trump a 12 on a scale of one to 25 — the same number it assigned to the possibility that jihadi terrorism would destabilize the global economy.

“The firm pointed to a number of reasons, including Trump’s hostility toward free trade, his accusing China of being a ‘currency manipulator,’ his advocating the killing of terrorists’ families, and his proposal to move troops into Syria to fight ISIS and take its oil.

“This appeared to be the first time the EIU had rated a presidential candidate’s election as a global risk… The organization ranks risks by impact and probability. A Trump presidency bore high impact, but moderate probability, the EIU said. ‘Although we do not expect Mr. Trump to defeat his most likely Democratic contender, Hillary Clinton, there are risks to this forecast, especially in the event of a terrorist attack on U.S. soil or a sudden economic downturn,’ the authors wrote.

“Other global threats on the list included a ‘sharp economic slowdown in China,’ a collapse of investment in the oil sector, the break up of the European Union, the further rise of jihadi terrorism, and Russian actions in Ukraine and Syria leading to ‘a new “cold war.’”…

“Also Wednesday, the Washington Post editorial board called for the Republican Party to aim for [a] brokered convention to prevent a Trump nomination, arguing that Trump ‘presents a threat to American democracy.’…”

However, the more institutions and papers write and speak against Trump, the more his popularity rises within the USA. It must also be stated that some, if not many of the “global threats” listed by the EIU are really not relevant or will not come to fruition (such as the clearly wrong prognostication of a break-up of the EU or the expectation that Trump would be defeated by Clinton and that a Trump presidency had only a “moderate probability”). This shows that the EIU may not be as informed as they are portrayed to be.

Incredible Hate and Violence of Anti-Trump “Demonstrators”

The Washington Post wrote on March 21:

“Brandon Tatum, an officer in the Tucson Police Department, went to a Trump rally on Saturday as a civilian to see what was going on. In a subsequent video, he said he thought there was going to be “a full-fledged riot” at the event — but not because of Trump’s supporters. The protesters were the problem, Tatum said. ‘These people were acting so outrageous,’ he said…

“Tatum said he went to the rally at the Tucson Arena dressed in civilian clothes — a black shirt and khakis — to hear what Trump had to say… But at the door, he said, protesters were ‘verbally violent’… ‘I could not believe what I saw,’ said Tatum, who is African American.

“Someone in the crowd was wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood, Tatum said, and people were ‘cussing and screaming’ and tackling one another to the ground… ‘People were directly yelling at me as if I’m a criminal…’

“On Saturday morning, protesters blocked traffic leading to a Trump rally near Phoenix… Hours later, protesters in Tucson formed a human wall in front of the entrance to a second rally site…

“Tatum said Trump had rented out the venue and, therefore, had the legal right to remove people from the event. It was the violent protesters who were violating people’s constitutional rights to freedom of speech and assembly, he said.”

Trump Scores Big at AIPAC

JTA wrote on March 21:

“Donald Trump… earned an enthusiastic response to his speech at AIPAC’s [American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s] annual conference… [He] softened two positions that have created unease among pro-Israel activists — his insistence on remaining ‘neutral’ in brokering Israeli-Palestinian peace and his refusal to commit to recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

“On Jerusalem, Trump vowed to move the American embassy to the city, ‘the eternal capital of the Jewish people.’ And he said the Palestinians must accept as a given the closeness of the U.S.-Israel relationship. ‘The Palestinians must come to the table knowing that the bond between the United States and Israel is absolutely unbreakable,’ Trump said. ‘They must come to the table willing to accept that Israel is a Jewish state and it will exist forever as a Jewish state.’

“Trump opponents who had said they would protest the speech because of his broadsides against minorities and his sanctioning of political violence were not visible during his speech, which earned repeated standing ovations.

“Trump’s enthusiastic embrace of pro-Israel orthodoxy appeared to resonate with the AIPAC activists in the Verizon Center arena, and the loud applause was not the only indication. Immediately following Trump’s speech, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, his closest rival in the presidential race, scored Trump for pledging neutrality on Israel and for not promising to ‘shred’ the Iran deal upon election. Both gibes fell flat.

“Trump delivered broadsides against his likely rival in the general election, Hillary Clinton, calling her a ‘total disaster’ and blaming her for last year’s Iran nuclear deal. The line earned laughter and applause, although Clinton’s speech, earlier in the day, was well received.

“Trump’s biggest applause line was when he began a sentence, ‘President Obama, in his final year – yay!’ AIPAC led opposition last year to the Iran nuclear deal and clashed repeatedly with the Obama administration in its unsuccessful bid to get Congress to nix the deal.”

It is amazing how the mass media tries to downplay Trump’s impact. Deutsche Welle reported on March 21, that “Trump has received a lukewarm response from pro-Israeli advocates” at the AIPAX meeting. This is clearly not the case, as the Jewish JTA reported (see above). Rather, Trump received enthusiastic approval from the Jewish audience. To try to stop Trump with lies will not work. And while Trump won big on Tuesday in Arizona’s election, he lost big against Ted Cruz in Utah.

Trump vs. Germany?

The Washington Post wrote on March 21:

“Donald Trump outlined an unabashedly noninterventionist approach to world affairs Monday, telling The Washington Post’s editorial board that he questions the need for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which has formed the backbone of Western security policies since the Cold War… Trump said he advocates a light footprint in the world. In spite of unrest abroad, especially in the Middle East, Trump said the United States must look inward and steer its resources toward rebuilding domestic infrastructure… For the first time, Trump also listed members of a team chaired by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) that is counseling him on foreign affairs and helping to shape his policies: Keith Kellogg, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Walid Phares and Joseph E. Schmitz.

“… on the subject of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, [Trump]  said America’s allies are ‘not doing anything.’ ‘Ukraine is a country that affects us far less than it affects other countries in NATO, and yet we’re doing all of the lifting,’ Trump said. ‘They’re not doing anything. And I say: “Why is it that Germany’s not dealing with NATO on Ukraine? Why is it that other countries that are in the vicinity of Ukraine, why aren’t they dealing? Why are we always the one that’s leading, potentially the third world war with Russia.”’

“Trump said that U.S. involvement in NATO may need to be significantly diminished in the coming years, breaking with nearly seven decades of consensus in Washington. ‘We certainly can’t afford to do this anymore,’ Trump said, adding later, ‘NATO is costing us a fortune, and yes, we’re protecting Europe with NATO, but we’re spending a lot of money.’… He questioned the value of massive military investments in Asia and wondered aloud whether the United States still was capable of being an effective peacekeeping force there…”

The German boulevard press does not like Trump’s statements. Bild Online reported on March 21: “Trump Attacks Germany” (apparently for his suggestion that Germany should do more regarding Ukraine) and on March 22: “Trump Speaks of World War III.” They also stated on March 21 that Trump’s vocabulary is that of a fifth-grader. This accusation is obviously ridiculous.

Terror Attack in Belgium–“Is Trump So Wrong?”

On March 22, Mail Online published the following article by Piers Morgan (former “America Has Talent” judge and CNN moderator):

“How many more? That’s all I could think this morning as news broke of yet another ISIS terror attack, this time in Brussels. How many more innocent men, women and children are going to be blown to pieces by these murderous bastards? How many more airports, train stations, sports stadiums, restaurants or concert halls will be obliterated in a hail of suicide bombs and bullets? How many more world leaders will wring their hands on national television afterwards and spout pointless platitudes about the ‘poor brave victims’ and ‘heroic emergency services’? How many taunting, gleeful claims of responsibility will the despicable perpetrators of these evil crimes be able to issue?…

“The inherent problem which causes it, chaotic war-torn instability in the Middle East, is getting worse, not better; just as the financial and military resource of the enemy is growing greater, not reducing. Yet just as the world is crying out for strong decisive leadership, there is none.

“America has a demob happy President Obama eeking out his last few months in office. A man whose infamous ‘leading from behind’ philosophy to foreign policy has been partly responsible for the war in Syria raging uncontrollably for five years – allowing fundamentalism to ferment. Obama has zero interest in doing anything tangible to really deal with ISIS. This is now parked in the tray marked ‘next president’s problem.’

“Europe, meanwhile, is splintering at the seams, ravaged by an unprecedented migration crisis that nobody seems to have a clue how to handle. German chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to let a million migrants into its country is already seen to be an utter disaster. France, reeling from two horrendous attacks in Paris, is understandably highly fearful of yet more terror coming its way. Belgium officials effectively conceded today that they have no real way to protect themselves against the ISIS threat. A fact surely born out by the fact that today’s onslaught in Brussels happened right when the city most expected it, following the capture of Paris attacks suspect Saleh Abdeslam three days ago.

“Britain, surely a target anytime soon, is on red alert but its warring politicians are too distracted by the upcoming EU referendum in June to pay anything more than lame lip service to terrorism. So nobody seems to be doing anything concrete to stop ISIS, or even suggesting a new way to do so given the spectacular lack of success to date.

“Well almost nobody.

“By coincidence, I had an interview scheduled today with the world’s most controversial man, Donald Trump, for my UK show, Good Morning Britain. It was set up a couple of weeks ago, but the timing was eerily prescient. Here is one man who definitely has a plan to deal with ISIS terrorism. Several plans in fact. The problem is that people don’t like them. Well, a lot of people don’t anyway.

“Trump, current front-runner for the Republican nomination, wants to hit ISIS ‘so hard they never recover’… He also wants a short-term ban on Muslims entering the U.S. until, as he puts it, ‘we figure out what the hell is going on?’ And he wants to torture suspects like Abdeslam with techniques like water-boarding to try and extract information about future attacks. Oh, and he wants to build a giant wall to stop illegal immigrants pouring over the Mexican border into America…

“Trump told me countries must tighten their borders in light of these terror attacks, especially to anyone related to an ISIS fighter in Syria. Is he so wrong?

“He told me he wants law-abiding Muslims to root out the extremists in their midst, expressing his bafflement and anger that someone like Abdeslam was able to hide for so long in the very part of Brussels he had previously lived. Is he so wrong?

“He told me America must make it far harder for illegal immigrants to enter the U.S. and thinks European countries should follow suit. Is he so wrong?

“He told me he believes there are now areas of many major European cities which have become poisonous breeding grounds for radicalized Islamic terror. Is he so wrong?

“I didn’t feel I was talking to a lunatic, as many seem to view Trump. I saw a guy, a non-politician unfettered by PC language restraints, who is genuinely furious at the devastation which ISIS is wreaking, and seriously concerned for the security of his fellow Americans and indeed, the citizens of Europe.

“His plans for tackling this extraordinarily dangerous threat to the world have been widely condemned as ‘bigoted’ and ‘racist’. But although I publicly criticised him for the Muslim short-term ban suggestion, I’ve known Trump for ten years and I don’t believe he’s a racist… And right now, he firmly believes that ISIS will murder countless more Americans and Europeans if somebody somewhere doesn’t stand up and punch them hard in the face.

“Someone prepared to stop spewing politically-correct niceties after these attacks, hoping nobody gets offended, and actually DO something. Let’s be honest with ourselves, right now ISIS is winning this war and will continuing committing utter carnage on our streets on an ever graver and more barbaric scale until they are stopped.

“I don’t have the answers to how to do that. But I don’t hear any good ideas coming from any world leaders at the moment either, and it’s their highly paid jobs to work it out. Instead, I see a global paralysis driven by fear, confusion and woeful lack of leadership. And it will only get worse.

“Hate Donald Trump all you like, but at least he seems to recognise the magnitude of the threat and at least he has firm proposals for how to try to defeat it. They may not win him the Politically Correct Pontificator of the Year award. But how many more scenes like this morning’s appalling images from Brussels are we going to tolerate before we try a non-PC option to beat these disgusting excuses for human beings?

“At the end of our interview, I asked Donald Trump to send a message to the large majority of non-violent, decent Muslims who are as disgusted by these attacks as the rest of us. ‘I have great respect for Muslims,’ he said, ‘I have many friends that are Muslims. I’m just saying that there is something with a radicalized portion that is very, very bad and very dangerous. I would say this, to the Muslims, when they see trouble, they have to report it, they’re not reporting it, they’re absolutely not reporting it and that’s a big problem.’ Is he so wrong?”

ISIS Ready to Attack Europe

The Associated Press wrote on March 23:

“The Islamic State group has trained at least 400 fighters to target Europe in deadly waves of attacks, deploying interlocking terror cells like the ones that struck Brussels and Paris with orders to choose the time, place and method for maximum carnage, officials have told The Associated Press.

“The network of agile and semiautonomous cells shows the reach of the extremist group in Europe even as it loses ground in Syria and Iraq. The officials… described camps in Syria, Iraq and possibly the former Soviet bloc where attackers are trained to attack the West. Before being killed in a police raid, the ringleader of the Nov. 13 Paris attacks claimed he had entered Europe in a multinational group of 90 fighters, who scattered ‘more or less everywhere.’…

“Estimates range from 400 to 600 Islamic State fighters trained specifically for external attacks… Some 5,000 Europeans have gone to Syria.”

President Obama’s Failed “Strategy” Regarding ISIS

The New York Times wrote on March 22:

“It is not working. President Obama’s slow-but-steady strategy to defeat the Islamic State… is doing nothing to dent the charismatic appeal of the militant group, disrupt its propaganda or prevent it from killing Europeans.

“The Brussels attacks that left at least 30 people dead at the city’s international airport and a subway station adjacent to the European Union headquarters — the symbolism could scarcely be more potent — came just four days after the capture in the Belgian capital on Friday of Salah Abdeslam. He was the sole survivor among the 10 men believed to have perpetrated the attacks that killed 130 people in Paris a little more than four months ago.

“The Islamic State claimed responsibility. The Brussels slaughter bore its hallmarks — an apparently retaliatory attack, carried out by members of a large Belgian cell, many of them trained in Syria, all living in a European country that has permitted Islamist terrorists to infiltrate its neighborhoods. The message was clear: We can still hit you at will. Nothing that Western governments have done since Paris has changed that…

“Since the Paris attack, Obama has insisted that an anti-Islamic State coalition with European and other allies is getting the job done… The president has suggested that more radical military action to crush the militants — essentially the deployment of infantry — would drag the United States into another Middle Eastern war and increase the appeal of the Islamic State… This is a very high-risk policy… It allows the Islamic State to strut its pure evil in and from Raqqa. The Obama approach posits that the Islamic State can be beaten before European and American societies are undermined. Again today, speaking in Havana, he said, ‘We will defeat those who threaten the safety and security of people all around the world.’ But the president does not say when victory will come against these forces he declined to identify, and time counts… [the] ponderous wait-them-out approach to the murderous fanatics of the caliphate looks like capitulation.”

Obama in Cuba

The Guardian wrote on March 21:

“President Raúl Castro of Cuba demanded that Barack Obama hand back Guantánamo Bay and fully end the US trade embargo as their historic first summit in Havana witnessed an unexpectedly spirited clash of political values. Despite emotional scenes of reconciliation that earlier saw the Star Spangled Banner played to spine-tingling effect by a Cuban band in Revolution Square, the two leaders made clear that rapprochement had only come so far. ‘There are profound differences between our countries that will not go away,’ said Castro as he turned the tables on the question of human rights and criticised the US for its failures to ensure universal healthcare and equal pay for women… The Cuban leader also angrily rejected questions by a US journalist who questioned his country’s human rights record… When asked why Cuba still held political prisoners, a visibly irritated Castro responded by asking: ‘What political prisoners? Give me a list of the political prisoners and I will release them immediately…’

“Obama agreed that the two countries still had much to disagree about and said the two had ‘frank and candid’ exchanges during nearly three hours of bilateral meetings earlier on Monday. ‘After five very difficult decades, the relationship between our two countries will not be transformed overnight,’ said the US president. ‘We continue to have significant differences … and that includes democracy and human rights…’

“‘Cuba’s destiny will not be decided by the United States or any other country,’ Obama added…  Obama’s conciliatory remarks – in which he predicted Congress would soon lift the embargo – may anger critics back home, who claim he has given away too much for too little by restoring diplomatic relations without guarantees of political reform… Many thorny issues remain unresolved. Cuba is adamant that no full rapprochement is possible unless the US lifts its embargo and returns the US navy base at Guantánamo Bay. Neither are acceptable to the Republic-controlled US Congress…”

Sadly, in his typically apologetic manner, President Obama said that he ‘“personally would not disagree’ with some of Cuban President Raul Castro’s criticisms of America,” according to the Weekly Standard on March 21. He spoke in Cuba during a press conference for less than a minute on the terrorist attack in Belgium and then went to a baseball game with President Castro …

Nothing Learned

Newsmax added on March 24:

“President Barack Obama came under bitter attack Wednesday for doing the tango and taking in other pleasures on his visits to Cuba and Argentina amid the deadly terrorist attacks in Brussels… In Buenos Aires on Wednesday, President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama were coaxed onto the dance floor by professional tango dancers at a state dinner hosted by Argentine President Mauricio Macri…

“Obama played golf on Martha’s Vineyard in September 2014 after making a quick statement condemning the beheading of Foley, a freelance journalist from New Hampshire, by Islamic State terrorists. He later admitted that the move was a mistake after widespread outrage by critics.”

Even the German media reported about President and Mrs. Obama’s conduct with disgust.

Will China’s Economic Bubble Burst?

 Quartz wrote on March 22:

“The US subprime boom that eventually would trigger the 2008 global financial crisis started when lenders pushed outsized home loans on people without the wherewithal to pay them back. These homeowners were often so cash-strapped that they made tiny down payments on their properties. When home prices fell and loans went bad, banks and investors holding the loans, and financial investments build off them had to eat massive losses. One corner of China’s property market is starting to look very similar. That’s because Chinese home buyers are borrowing huge amounts of money to pay for down payments through the country’s hard-to-track shadow banking system…

“Normally, to get a mortgage in China, homebuyers need to put down at least 20% of a home’s value, and more in some big cities. But in recent years, these new players have stepped in, making it possible for someone with no savings at all to take out a mortgage…

“China’s top leadership is worried [pointing] out parallels between China’s situation and the US subprime crisis, [stating that it] could lead to a financial disaster… borrowing money to cover home down payments [is] not allowed… the problem has already grown to many billions of dollars… Even as China’s economic growth has slowed, outstanding mortgage loans have continued to grow. Chinese bank-issued home loans rose to 14 trillion yuan ($2.2 trillion) in 2015, 6% faster than the previous year…”

The Convoluted Hotchpotch of Easter Dating

The Independent wrote on March 21:

“Easter is fast approaching as Lent draws to a close and the festival takes place this Sunday 27 March… Easter’s date fluctuates every year. This year, the date is the earliest for almost a decade…

“As a general rule, it falls on the first Sunday which follows the first full moon after 21 March. The convoluted system is the product of a mix of Hebrew, Roman and Egyptian culture and calendars. The Egyptians based their calendar on the movement on the Sun, which was adopted by Roman and then Christian culture. However, Judaism used one based on the phases of the moon, which Islam also incorporates.

“Easter’s date fluctuates due to an attempt to harmonise these solar and lunar calendars. However, the issue is further complicated as there is no one fixed way to calculate Easter. Rather, more than a dozen different formulas exist. Many people have called for the system to be simplified to reduce confusion. In 1928 an Easter Act was passed which fixed the date as the first Sunday after the second Saturday in April. However, the law did not catch on and very few people adopted it. It has never been enforced by the Government and has largely been forgotten.

“The most common date for Easter is 19 April, making this year’s date very early. The earliest it can be is 22 March. However, it has not fallen on this date since 1818 and won’t fall here again until 2285. The latest day on which Easter can fall is 25 April. This last happened in 1943 and will next come round in 2038.”

The pagan festival of Easter has really nothing to do with true Christianity, and it is actually a dangerously dark and sinister holiday. For more information, please view our new StandingWatch program, “The Dark Side of Easter.” 

Transgender Ideology “Mental Disorder” and “Child Abuse”

Breitbart wrote on March 21:

“In a strongly worded statement…, the professional association of pediatricians says ‘a person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking.’ It describes such thinking as [a] problem that exists in the mind and not the body and ‘it should be treated as such.’ The college of pediatricians is joining a heated debate that increasingly pits concerned parents against school teachers, administrators, legislators, and transsexual advocates who are pushing the trans agenda in grade-schools, city governments, state governments, and the federal government.

“A wave of ‘non-discrimination’ bills are appearing around the country that require public women’s restrooms to accommodate men who think they are women and even those who consider themselves ‘gender non-binary,’ that is, men who appear to be men but who say there are neither male or female…

“The statement points out that such gender confusion should be treated as a psychological disorder called ‘gender dysphoria’ and is ‘a recognized mental disorder in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-V).’

“The group is most concerned about the regimen of drugs that are given to children to block puberty. ‘Children who use puberty blockers to impersonate the opposite sex will require cross-sex hormones in late adolescence. Cross-sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen) are associated with dangerous health risks including but not limited to high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke and cancer.’

“Rates of suicide among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex change reassignment surgery are ‘twenty times greater’ than the rest of the population even in such trans-friendly places as Sweden. The doctors argue that ‘Conditioning children into believing a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse.’”

The transgender ideology is indeed the product of a spiritually unhealthy mind. Please view our “controversial” and not necessarily highly popular StandingWatch program, “God’s Viewpoint on Transgender and Homosexual Individuals.”  

Religious Change in the USA

The Atlantic wrote on March 20:

“In the United States, fewer young Americans identify as religious or attend regular services than members of any other living generation… Religion is no longer the mode through which many people live their lives…

“But even as the country is becoming somewhat less religious, it is also becoming more religiously diverse… Immigrants are introducing their cultural practices into so-called old-time religion…

“Religious choices… create some of the most intense and hate-filled conflicts in American politics…  This might include the choice of who to marry, whether to convert, and how to spend a Friday night or Sunday morning. Some face the dilemma of staying in a religion that upholds tenets with which they disagree, or leaving a religion they love… The way young Americans wrestle with these choices will not only shape their futures. It will shape the future of the country.”

The Bible says that end-time America will totally reject the true God.

The Long Sad History of Anti-Semitic “Conspiracy” Theories

The Guardian wrote on March 19:

“Whenever I hear Jews announce their hatred of Israel’s very existence, I suspect that underneath their loud bombast lies a quiet plea to the Islamists and neo-Nazis who might harm them: ‘I’m not like the others. Don’t pick on me.’…

“Whether the antisemitic conspiracy theory is deployed by German Nazis [including German Neo-Nazis] or Arab dictators, French anti-Dreyfusards or Saudi clerics, the argument is always the same. Democracy, an independent judiciary, equal human rights, freedom of speech and publication – all these ‘supposed’ freedoms – are nothing but swindles that hide the machinations of the secret Jewish rulers of the world…  The ‘Israel lobby’ controls western foreign policy. Israel itself is the ‘root cause’ of all the terrors of the Middle East, from the Iraq war to Islamic State. Polite racism turns the Jews, once again, into demons with the supernatural power to manipulate and destroy nations. Or as the Swedish foreign minister, Margot Wallström, who sees herself as a feminist rather than a racial conspiracist, explained recently, Islamist attacks in Paris were the fault of Israeli occupiers in the West Bank.

“Or consider the otherwise bizarre indulgence of ultra-right religious extremists by people who otherwise describe themselves as liberals and leftists. As someone who warned… about the growing darkness on the left, I am pessimistic about the chances of change…  they will have to learn to treat all racisms equally. They will need to make a brief acquaintance with European history and understand that the left has no guaranteed immunity from fascistic ideology. They will have to see antisemitism for what it is and understand why it always leads to despotism and despair…”

Rightly understood, the ideology of anti-Semitism has had a field day in radical left philosophies. Stalin’s Russia persecuted the Jews, as did other Communist countries. So did Hitler’s Germany. But even though it is normally “described” as a radical right-wing philosophy, the term Nazi actually means “national SOCIALIST.”

Neanderthals Were Modern Human Beings!

Reuters reported on March 19:

“Scientists said on Friday an analysis of genetic information on about 1,500 people from locations around the world indicated at least four interbreeding episodes tens of thousands of years ago, three with our close cousins the Neanderthals and one with the mysterious extinct human species known as Denisovans. People living on the remote equatorial islands of Melanesia represented the only population found to possess an appreciable level of Denisovan genetic ancestry. These Melanesians, like most human populations, also had Neanderthal genetic ancestry…

“Denisovans, discovered in the past decade, are known only from a pinky finger bone and two teeth from a northern Siberian cave.”

This would again prove that Neanderthals (and Denisovans, if they really existed) were human beings (homo sapiens), and not ape-like creatures. For more information and proof, please read our free booklet, “Heavens and Earth… Before and After the First Man.” 

An Organized Assault on Free Speech by the Radical Left

Breitbart wrote on March 12:

“We Warned You: Chicago Trump Shutdown Is Just the Beginning… last night’s battle in Chicago may come as a shock, but it should come as no surprise.

“No other news organization has documented the rise and origins of the groups behind Friday night’s madhouse as thoroughly as the team at Breitbart News. From its origins being exposed in the film Occupy Unmasked before the election cycle to covering and exposing every aspect of the new Black Lives Matter incarnation, we’ve given readers the intellectual ammunition to understand the dangerous rise of the new American left in the Obama era…

“The enemy here is the organized institutional left… Black Lives Matter will not back down or rest until it is either stopped by someone gutsy enough to call them out or until it gets what it wants: a bloody revolution leading to a socialist/anarchist America… There’s a battle for the soul of our nation.”

When Donald Trump decided to cancel his rally in Chicago on Friday night, due to imminent threats and the danger of violent actions by the organized (radical) left, sadly, the “reporting” of the mainstream media was predictable. The antagonism towards Trump was to be expected by left-liberal stations such as CNN, NBC and of course MSNBC, but it also included conservative outlets such as Fox News. All of this was pitiful and appalling at the same time. Comments by Republican competitors Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich, blaming the victim (and frontrunner) Donald Trump as the responsible perpetrator for violent anti-Trump “demonstrations,” was ridiculous and bordered on the fictitious narrative of the left, including by socialists and communists, but they also showed their willingness to capitalize on every opportunity they can get to secure a few more votes. (That Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama would seize on the opportunity to blame Trump was of course foreseeable.) This is politics at its lowest level.

However, all the negativism will only help Trump, as Breitbart pointed out on March 12:

“Supporters of [Cruz and Rubio] took to social media to slam the freshman senators for blaming leftists shutting down a Trump Chicago rally on GOP frontrunner Donald Trump… Cruz supporters, incensed by the Texas senator’s blame game, stormed social media to express their anger… Rubio fared little better… [Some Rubio supporters were] just as angry as former Cruz supporters.”

Members of the Church of the Eternal God and its corporate affiliates do not participate in politics and its rotten and corrupt political maneuvering; they neither vote nor endorse anyone as their political candidate. (Note the Editorial in last week’s Update). We are here to report the news in the light of biblical prophecy, and it has become apparent to us for quite some time that Trump MIGHT very well be predestined to become the next US President [and not Hillary Clinton or Ted Cruz]—so that biblical prophecy can be fulfilled. For more information, please request a copy of our free booklet, “The Fall and Rise of Britain and America.”

Who IS to Be Blamed for the Violence?

Breitbart UK wrote on March 13:

“I’ve been saying it for a while now, the mainstream media, alongside the politicians running against Donald Trump on both sides, are creating the conditions in which it would be totally ‘understandable’ if there were an attempt on Trump’s life… First, they made Donald Trump the enemy of this race… Then… Mr. Trump started attracting serious support. And the primary victories came. And the other candidates dropped out…

“Now Donald Trump is Adolf Hitler. Because people raise their hands at his rallies… That must make them Nazis. Forget that Mrs. Clinton’s supporters have done the same thing…

“Mr. Trump, like Mr. Farage [in the UK], has been portrayed as the progenitor of violence, despite the fact that Sen. Bernie Sanders supporters shut down his rally in Chicago last night. And despite the fact that someone tried to jump Mr. Trump on stage in Ohio… The problem, to these people, is Mr. Trump. Not their own… violent tendencies…

“And it’s quite clear who is to blame for all of this… It’ll be the fault of the Hitlerizing media. It’ll be the fault of the groups who shut down his events, and made him an easy target. And it’ll be the fault of those who would rather defend President Barack Obama’s record as the ‘first black president’ instead of conceding that he has divided your country more than he has united it… Something very bad could be about to happen.”

It is indeed very sad that because of paid-for tumults, which are organized by the left, and because of the unfair propaganda of the liberal and conservative mass media, Donald Trump’s life could indeed be in danger.

“Republican Wimps Absolve the Rioters”

On March 14, WND published the following article by Pat Buchanan:

“Friday evening’s Donald Trump rally in Chicago was broken up by a foul-mouthed mob that infiltrated the hall and forced the cancellation of the event to prevent violence and bloodshed. Brownshirt tactics worked. The mob, triumphant, rejoiced.  And the reaction of Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and John Kasich? All three Republican rivals blamed – Donald Trump.

“With his ‘dangerous style of leadership,’ Trump stokes this anger, mewed Rubio, ‘This is what happens when a leading presidential candidate goes around feeding into a narrative of bitterness and anger and frustration.’ Rubio implies that if Trump doesn’t tone down his remarks to pacify the rabble, he will be responsible for the violence visited upon him.

“Kasich echoed Rubio: ‘Donald Trump has created a toxic environment (that) has allowed his supporters and those who sometimes seek confrontation to come together in violence.’ But were the thousands of Trump supporters who came out to cheer him that night really looking for a fight? Or were they exercising their right of peaceful assembly?

“Cruz charged Trump with ‘creating an environment that only encourages this sort of nasty discord,’ thus offering absolution to the mob.

“Friday night cried out for moral clarity. What we got from Trump’s rivals was moral mush that called to mind JFK’s favorite quote from Dante: The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. As news outlets have reported, Friday’s disruption at the University of Illinois-Chicago auditorium was a preplanned assault. Behind it were the George Soros-funded MoveOn.org, Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, Hispanics hoisting Mexican flags and cop-haters carrying filthy signs to show their contempt for police.

“People for Bernie, a pro-Sanders outfit, tweeted, ‘[This] wasn’t just luck. It took organizers from dozens of organizations and thousands of people to pull off. Great work.’ Now, Sanders did not order this assault on the civil rights of Trump supporters. But MoveOn.org has endorsed him, and ‘Bernie’ signs and T-shirts were everywhere among the disrupters. Hence, he has a duty to disavow this conduct and those who engaged in it…

“Can one imagine how the media would pile on Trump if working-class white males in Trump T-shirts invaded a Hillary Clinton rally and shut it down?…

“Given their ‘victory’ in Chicago, MoveOn.org and its allied nasties will try to replicate it, again and again. And as Americans came to despise the ’60s radicals, they will come to despise them. And, as in the 1960s, the country will take a turn – to the right. America has changed from the land we grew up in. But she is not yet ready to allow ugly mobs screaming obscenities at Trump and his folks inside and outside that hall in Chicago, or their paragons like socialist Bernie Sanders, to take over the country…”

China’s Anti-Trump (and Anti-American) Propaganda

China’s state-owned newspaper Global Times wrote on March 14:

“Donald Trump, front-runner to be the GOP’s candidate for the upcoming US presidential election, encountered a major protest at his campaign event in Chicago on Friday evening… Trump’s mischief has overthrown a lot of conventional norms of US political life. His remarks are abusively racist and extremist, which has left an impression on the US public that he is intentionally overthrowing political correctness.

“Trump’s rise was not anticipated by most analysts and observers. At the beginning of the election, Trump, a rich, narcissist and inflammatory candidate, was only treated as an underdog. His job was basically to act as a clown to attract more voters’ attention to the GOP. However, knocking down most other promising candidates, the clown is now the biggest dark horse…

“The rise of Trump has opened a Pandora’s box in US society… Big-mouthed, anti-traditional, abusively forthright, he is a perfect populist that could easily provoke the public… The rise of a racist in the US political arena worries the whole world… He has even been called another Benito Mussolini or Adolf Hitler by some Western media.

“Mussolini and Hitler came to power through elections, a heavy lesson for Western democracy… Even if Trump is simply a false alarm, the impact has already left a dent… The US had better watch itself for not being a source of destructive forces against world peace, more than pointing fingers at other countries for their so-called nationalism and tyranny.”

The Huffington Post reported on March 14:

“The Shanghai Morning Post, a local [Chinese] newspaper owned by the Communist Party… accused Trump of continually making ‘empty promises’ to solve a string of social problems… It also added that Trump’s looks and hairstyle were ‘obviously bizarre.’ ‘If [Trump] really wins, it will be hard to imagine what will become of the United States,’ the editorial concluded. Chinese outlets have not shied away from commenting on Trump in the past. After former Republican candidate and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson endorsed Trump on Friday, China Youth Daily, the official newspaper of the country’s Communist Youth League, published an op-ed the next day titled, ‘Who Can Stop “Madman” Trump’s Leading Pace?’”

It seems that dictatorial Communist China, which tramples civil rights and liberties of its citizens under foot and which is taking advantage of the USA, is becoming really anxious and concerned about Trump, taking his threats (including high tariffs for imported goods) much more seriously than many Americans are willing to do.

Japan Worried About the USA

The Financial Times wrote on March 15:

“Japan regards the US military presence as crucial to its long-run security position given China’s rise, and counts on the US nuclear umbrella to deter attack by the regime in North Korea. ‘Still fresh in our memory is the tremendous damage another Washington outsider, Jimmy Carter, did to East Asia’s security equation,’ said one foreign policy figure with ties to the Abe government. ‘Had Carter indeed withdrawn US troops from the Korean peninsula at the peak of the cold war, the world as we know it might well not have existed.’…

“On TPP [Trans-Atlantic Partnership]… they worry that Mr Trump’s rhetoric will make it hard for Congress to ratify the deal, whoever wins. As well as the direct benefits from greater trade, the Abe administration regards TPP as one of its best tools for forcing the Japanese economy to reform in areas such as agriculture…

“Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, recently toughened her rhetoric on TPP… She wants tougher ‘rules of origin’ standards, which specify where motor parts must come from for a vehicle to enter the US tax-free.

“Tokyo regards access to the US car market as its main gain from TPP… The growing threat that TPP will fail in the US casts a shadow over Japan’s own debate about ratification, which is due to start after the budget passes this month…”

Trump on the Road to Victory

The New York Times wrote on March 16:

“Donald J. Trump’s series of victories on Tuesday extended his delegate lead and forced Senator Marco Rubio of Florida out of the presidential race. Mr. Trump’s path to winning enough delegates to secure the Republican nomination is not assured, but he is in a strong position…

“If Mr. Trump maintains his current level of support in the remaining races, he would almost certainly secure the nomination.

“After Tuesday’s contests, no other candidate retains a real chance of capturing the delegates required to win the nomination outright. Mr. Rubio dropped out, Gov. John Kasich of Ohio is too far behind, and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas would need to win the vast majority of the remaining delegates — a near impossibility.

“But Mr. Trump still needs to win most of the remaining delegates to avoid a contested convention. If he continues his current performance and wins a series of key states — like Arizona, California and New York — he would get the needed delegates. Mr. Trump will probably need to win California, which has 172 delegates. California is winnable for Mr. Trump, but it could be a difficult state for him… If Mr. Trump loses California, he could miss the delegate cutoff.

“Exit polls have indicated that most of Mr. Rubio’s support could be distributed to Mr. Trump’s competitors. Say 80 percent of Mr. Rubio’s voters go to Mr. Cruz. This would cut into Mr. Trump’s delegate lead. But even that may not prevent Mr. Trump from winning the key states — like California — that ensure him enough delegates.”

Breitbart added on March 16:

“Wednesday on CNN’s ‘New Day,’ Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump was asked by show co-host Chris Cuomo about the possibility he could be denied the Republican presidential nomination at the party’s convention in Cleveland later this summer. Trump said he expected to have enough delegates before heading into the convention, but added that if he were just shy of the 1,237 requited to clinch the nomination and was ultimately denied it, there could be the possibility of ‘riots.’…

“Now, if you disenfranchise those people and you say, well I’m sorry but you’re 100 votes short, even though the next one is 500 votes short, I think you would have problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen, I really do. I believe that. I wouldn’t lead it but I think bad things would happen…’”

Ted Cruz—a Pentecostal and the Anointed One?

East Orlando Post wrote on March 10, 2016:

“While Ted Cruz proudly proclaims he is an Evangelical Christian, his campaign takes pains to hide the truth that Cruz and his pastor father, Rafael Cruz are Pentecostal Christians, a fact further hidden by having Ted and Heidi Cruz’s belong to the congregation of First Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist church in Houston, as their home church. Both Cruz’s parents, his father Rafael, a Cuban-born immigrant, and his mother Eleanor, born in Wilmington, Delaware, grew up in Catholic families. Both were among the millions that left the Catholic Church since the 1960s to embrace Pentecostalism, a Christian movement estimated to make up 4.4 percent of the U.S. population, accounting for some 13 percent of evangelical churches in the United States…

“Pentecostals believe [in the] unintelligible human utterances of [a] Pentecostal evangelist to be understood by foreigners who do not speak the Pentecostal evangelist’s language… Religion reporter Sarah Pulliam Bailey, writing in the Washington Post on March 25, 2015, was [one] of the first to recognize Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign logo and the purifying tongue-of-fire logo used commonly to identify Pentecostal churches…

“Rafael Cruz, at the Pastor Larry Huch’s New Beginnings mega-church in Bedford Texas, outside Dallas, on Aug. 26, 2012, in a Dominionist sermon proclaimed his son, Ted Cruz, to be the ‘anointed one,’ a Dominionist Messiah who would bring God’s law to reign… God anoints priests to work in the church directly and kings to go out into the marketplace to conquer, plunder, and bring back the spoils to the church. The reason governmental regulation has to disappear from the marketplace is to make it completely available to the plunder of Christian ‘kings’ who will accomplish the ‘end time transfer of wealth.’ Then ‘God’s bankers’ will usher in the ‘coming of the messiah.’ The government is being shut down so that God’s bankers can bring Jesus back…

“During a 2012 sermon at the New Beginnings Church in Bedford, Texas, Rafael Cruz described his son’s political campaign as a direct fulfillment of biblical prophecy… The elder Cruz told the congregation God would anoint Christian ‘kings’ to preside over an ‘end-time transfer of wealth’ from the wicked to the righteous. After this sermon, Larry Huch, the pastor of New Beginnings, claimed Cruz’s recent election to the U.S. Senate was a sign he was one of these kings… Rafael Cruz believes Christians must take dominion over seven aspects of culture: family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, and government.

“By identifying Ted Cruz as the ‘anointed one,’ Rafael Cruz has designated his son as what he believes is God’s choice to lead an evangelical coup d’etat…”

What unspeakable utter nonsense…

Merkel’s BIG Defeat in Germany’s State Elections

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 13:

“Exit polls suggest significant success for the populist right-wing AfD in three key state elections. Chancellor Merkel’s CDU saw losses in two out of three states, which have been attributed to her refugee policies. The right-leaning AfD managed to enter all three state parliaments, winning double-digit percentage results in Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. More than 12 million Germans were eligible to vote in the polls to elect new regional parliaments in the three states.

“According to exit polls the AfD won 23 percent [24 percent according to Bild Online] in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt, making it the second largest party after the ruling CDU, which managed to win 29 percent. The SPD meanwhile seems to have been dwarfed to around eleven percent [10 % according to Bild]…

“DW-analyst Simon Young said Germany was seeing a consolidation of support for the right-wing party across the country…

“According to early figures in Baden-Württemberg the ruling Green Party gained a substantial 32 percent, while the CDU, which ruled the state for almost six decades until 2011, lost a dramatic 11 percent bringing it out to 27.5 percent. The AfD also managed to win 13.1 percent [14.9% according to Bild] in this state putting [it] in third place before the SPD, currently the junior coalition partner in government, which fell to 13 percent…

“The so-called ‘Super Sunday’ is largely billed as a referendum on Merkel’s open door policy towards refugees, which saw more than a million people arrive in Germany last year. The policy has proven divisive, both among the German public and within Merkel’s CDU…

“The AfD still leader Frauke Petry told German public radio: … ‘This election shows that numerous voters are turning their backs on well-established parties’… The populist right-wing AfD campaigned on an anti-immigration platform, and has sought to scoop support from voters disillusioned with the Merkel government’s stance on refugees.”

Bild Online wrote on March 13:

“Election Debacle… Horror Day for Merkel and Gabriel [SPD]… This election result will cause a political earthquake… a disaster for the CDU… Merkel must be prepared for further controversies within her party and from the [Bavarian] CSU… The big winner is the AdF.”

The Local added on March 13:

“AfD has arrived on the political scene at a fortuitous moment… ‘AfD has become a national German party,’ said the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Opinion polls suggest that AfD might even capture seats in the lower house of parliament in elections in 2017 in what would be an unprecedented success for such a movement… Mainstream parties have stridently refused any sort of television debate with AfD members. But [an] analyst believes that the taboo surrounding such right-wing populism could be soon shattered.

“Some believe that the chancellor herself is to blame for pushing a middle ground politics that tries to be all things to all people… Die Welt daily went as far as to say that ‘AfD is Merkel’s child’ because the CDU has ‘ditched its identity’.”

Are Merkel’s Days Numbered?

The Local wrote on March 14:

“Sunday’s state elections have caused an earthquake in German politics. What does this mean for the future of Angela Merkel, her conservative party and the policy which will become her enduring legacy – welcoming refugees?… Merkel will have to decide by the summer whether she wants to stand as the Spitzenkandidat (top candidate) for the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, in the 2017 national elections.”

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote on March 14 that even though the AdF received many votes, Merkel appears to be “relaxed” as a “charismatic antagonist” (“ein charismatischer Widersacher”) is still missing, who could lead the protest against her policy.

The Punishment of Angela Merkel and the Rise of the AfD

Daily Mail wrote on March 13:

“Angela Merkel is punished in crucial state elections as far-Right party wins big vote with call to stop flow of refugees… German voters turned to the far right in droves yesterday in a damning verdict on Angela Merkel’s open door border policy. In regional elections she was humiliated by the anti-immigrant AfD – Alternative for Germany – party. Formed just three years ago, it has surged in popularity following Mrs Merkel’s decision to roll out the red carpet for more than a million migrants…

“Analysts said the regional poll… was a ‘worst case scenario’ for the embattled chancellor ahead of a general election next year. The timing made it a virtual referendum on Germany’s refugee policy. It will also be seen as an indictment of the failure of Europe’s ruling classes to acknowledge the public’s fears about migration. Mrs Merkel’s welcome for arrivals from Syria, other parts of the Middle East and North Africa, has caused chaos across the continent… there was outrage when gangs of migrant men were involved in organised sex attacks on women in Cologne and other cities on new year’s eve.

“One by one, EU states have thrown up border fences to stop the flow of arrivals – leading to the slow collapse of the Schengen passport-free zone. Austria is one of several countries to limit numbers in defiance of Brussels.

“Mrs Merkel, who has failed to win support for a Europe-wide quota system to share out refugees, last week masterminded a deal for Turkey to take back migrants landing in Greece. In return, Ankara would be handed up to £3.9billion, EU countries would accept quotas of Syrian refugees from Turkey and all 75million Turkish citizens would be allowed visa-free travel around continental Europe. On Thursday Mrs Merkel insisted that imposing a limit on refugee numbers was a ‘short-term pseudo-solution’ and that only a ‘concerted European approach’ would bring down numbers. Germany has attempted to return economic migrants to ‘safe’ countries such as Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro but still risks being overwhelmed.

“Last night millions of voters showed they have lost faith in the chancellor’s policies… middle-class voters are deserting the Christian Democrats and other establishment parties… The tabloid Bild newspaper ran the headline yesterday ‘AfD shocks Germany!’…

“The far right victory came despite attacks by leading establishment politicians. Mrs Merkel described AfD as a ‘party that does not bring cohesion in society and offers no appropriate solutions to problems, but only stokes prejudices and divisions’… Sigmar Gabriel of the Social Democrats accused AfD of having a ‘linguistic affinity’ with the Nazis.

“The Tagesspiegel newspaper said that the party drew in racists and anti-semites and suggested many former members of the neo-Nazi NPD ‘and other right wing parties are attracted to it’…

“Germany’s AfD… started out at as an anti–EU, anti–euro party sceptical of the power of Brussels and the ‘superstate’ project beloved of most of the Fatherland’s citizens. Its destiny was almost certain to be that of a protest party until the refugee crisis came along and propelled it on to the national stage in a way no–one predicted… AfD is seen by many in Germany to be linked to Pegida, a xenophobic movement which draws thousands onto the streets of the city of Dresden every Monday…

“The current leader of AfD is an East German-born female scientist. But the parallels with Angela Merkel end there. Frauke Petry believes that German police should ‘if necessary’ shoot at migrants seeking to enter the country illegally. She was lambasted for saying so in January but a poll found nearly 30 percent of the electorate agreed… Its latest big win makes it more powerful than ever.”

International Press Review

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 14:

“Here in Germany, reporters called it a ‘black election Sunday,’ with one commentator smelling a ‘whiff of Weimar’ in the AfD’s successes…

“Spanish daily El Pais described Sunday’s election results as a ‘political earthquake’ in Germany…

“Le Figaro’s Berlin correspondent Nicolas Barotte described the results as a ‘nightmare’ for… Merkel…

“Similarly, British paper The Times said that Merkel ‘was given a bloody nose by voters’…

“Swiss daily Blick told its German-speaking readers that ‘Germany is torn,’ calling the ballots a twin vote of no-confidence – both in terms of refugee policy and grand coalition government more generally… The Neue Zürcher Zeitung similarly saw a ‘warning shot towards Berlin’ and next year’s federal elections in Sunday’s results, calling them a ‘clear signal of [voter] dissatisfaction’…”

Further Rift between Israel and USA

Business Insider wrote on March 10:

“President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are in the midst of yet another public conflict. Earlier this week, the Israeli prime minister announced that he was canceling a planned trip to the US because of the limited window in which it would have been possible for him to meet with Obama. Netanyahu was supposed to address the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Meanwhile, Obama leaves for a historic visit to Cuba on March 18.

“Neither side disputes that a meeting could have taken place before Obama’s departure to Cuba. Instead, the Israeli side apparently decided that it wasn’t interested in a meeting… Netanyahu’s relationship with Obama has soured over a range of issues…

“Israel and the US are currently negotiating a memorandum of understanding that will help determine the next decade of US military assistance to the country.

“Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Obama wants to take one more shot at advancing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process before he leaves office, an effort that The Journal reported could include the US endorsement of a UN Security Council resolution outlining a final-status outcome to the conflict. From Israel’s perspective, such a move would unacceptably coerce concessions outside the context of direct negotiations with the Palestinians…”

The relationship between the USA and Israel is prophesied to deteriorate. Also note the next article.

Will Rocky American-Israeli Relationship Continue?

The New York Times wrote on March 15:

“For the last eight years, President Obama and Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, have disagreed over Iran, Israeli settlements and just about every other issue. The Democratic Party has meanwhile drifted further from Israel. Its candidates in this year’s election are Bernie Sanders, who boycotted Mr. Netanyahu’s speech to Congress last year, and the more likely nominee, Hillary Clinton, whose history of thorny relations with Israel’s prime minister began in the mid-1990s, when her husband clashed with the first Netanyahu government, and continued through her tenure as Mr. Obama’s secretary of state…

“Mr. Netanyahu and his colleagues in one of Israel’s most hawkish coalitions ever have been biding their time, waiting for Mr. Obama to vacate the White House in the hopes that he’d be replaced by a Republican with whom they could finally see eye to eye. That shouldn’t come as a surprise: Polls regularly show that Republicans are much more supportive of Israel than Democrats, and Republican candidates tend to hold positions — on issues from Iran to the Palestinians — that parallel those of a majority of Israeli voters…

“Israel depends on an America that asserts itself abroad. Israel needs bipartisan support. It needs stable, predictable American foreign policy. It desires candidates who sing Israel’s praises as often and as loudly as they can. Mr. Trump, who looks poised to capture the Republican Party’s nomination, offers Israel none of those. Mr. Netanyahu has every reason to be concerned and disappointed by what the American political system has produced this election cycle.

“On foreign policy, Mr. Trump certainly uses muscular language. He says he would ‘bomb the hell’ out of the Islamic State. That’s a welcome change from Mr. Obama, whose equivocations about the use of force have made America look weaker in the eyes of Israel’s enemies. And Mr. Trump has also been in line with the Netanyahu government in condemning the nuclear deal with Iran. But many of Mr. Trump’s statements on foreign policy suggest he has an isolationist streak. Last September, for example, he said: ‘Russia wants to get rid of ISIS. We want to get rid of ISIS. Maybe let Russia do it. Let them get rid of ISIS. What the hell do we care?’ That poses a problem for Israel: The last thing Israel wants is an America that refuses to lead.

“That is, except when it comes to Israeli-Palestinian relations, because if there’s anywhere the Netanyahu government might want to see a hands-off America, it would be on that issue. But here, Mr. Trump suddenly wants to take the lead. He promises he would broker a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians and assures that he would do it as a ‘neutral guy.’ For Israel ‘neutral’ is a code word with one meaning: unsupportive. In fact, ‘neutral’ is how Israelis tend to describe Mr. Obama’s policies by way of expressing displeasure. There are other ways Mr. Trump echoes the Obama administration: He has hinted that the lack of progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to do with Israel’s lack of enthusiasm rather than, as Mr. Netanyahu and most Republicans believe, because the Palestinians aren’t a serious partner for peace.

“And then, of course, there is Mr. Trump’s unpredictability… Sometimes he promises to destroy the Islamic State, other times he wants to leave the task to Russia. He criticizes the Iran deal, but unlike some other Republican candidates, doesn’t say he will ‘rip it up’ if he is elected.

“In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has repeatedly called himself Israel’s ‘biggest’ and ‘best’ friend. When it comes to Israel-United States relations, friendship is a word with many definitions. Early in his presidency, Mr. Obama said that his role as ‘a friend to Israel is partly to hold up a mirror and tell the truth’ when he disagreed with its policies. It’s no wonder that these days, the American president and his Israeli counterpart often look more like adversaries than friends.

“Israel’s government hoped a new president would restore a more traditional definition of friendship — one based on mutual trust and support. But if the choice comes down to Mrs. Clinton or Mr. Trump, that’s unlikely. From a President Clinton, Israel’s hawkish government would come under more of the same pressure it received from the Obama administration. From a President Trump … anything is possible.

“The rocky relations of the Obama era have damaged the American-Israeli alliance and eroded Israel’s standing in Washington and around the world…”

President Obama Nominates Jewish Judge to Supreme Court

JTA wrote on March 16:

“President Barack Obama nominated to the Supreme Court a Jewish judge, Merrick Garland, who is currently the chief of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

“Garland, 63, a Chicago native, has worked in Washington since the 1970s, first as a Supreme Court clerk, then a private lawyer, an assistant U.S. attorney and, since 1997, a federal judge.

“Obama made the announcement on Wednesday morning in the White House Rose Garden about his pick to fill the Supreme Court seat held by Antonin Scalia, who died last month. Republicans have vowed to block any Obama nominee, saying the vacancy on the nation’s highest court should be filled by the next president. The U.S. Senate, which is controlled by a Republican majority, must confirm any Supreme Court pick…

“Garland is a graduate of Harvard Law School and clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. In 1987, he married fellow Harvard graduate Lynn Rosenman in a Jewish ceremony at the Harvard Club in New York. Rosenman’s grandfather, Samuel Rosenman of New York, was a state Supreme Court justice and a special counsel to two presidents, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.

“Garland’s father, Cyril Garland, was born in Omaha but hailed from a Latvian Jewish immigrant family. He ran an advertising business out of the family home and died in 2000. Garland’s mother, Shirley Garland, who is still living, at one point served as director of volunteer services at the Council for Jewish Elderly in Chicago.

“If confirmed, Garland would be the fourth Jewish justice on the nation’s highest court, which is comprised entirely of Jews and Catholics. The three current Jewish members of the Supreme Court are Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elana Kagan and Stephen Breyer.”

Jewish Transgender Woman Obama’s Senior Liaison to LGBT Community

JTA wrote on March 14:

“Less than a year after becoming the first openly transgender person to serve in the White House, a Jewish woman been promoted to serve as its senior liaison to the LGBT community. Raffi Freedman-Gurspan, a Honduras native who was raised in Brookline, Massachusetts, by Jewish parents, will serve as the White House’s ‘lead point of contact’ for LGBT groups…

“Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, Freedman-Gurspan’s former employer, praised the appointment…

“Freedman-Gurspan, who is in her late 20s, was ‘a powerful leader for trans inclusion’ in her Brookline synagogue, Temple Beth Zion, according to the Jewish LGBT advocacy group Keshet. She also was active in the Jewish Student Union as an undergraduate at St. Olaf College in Minneapolis.

“Although Freedman-Gurspan was the first transgender White House staffer, another Jewish woman, Amanda Simpson, was the first transgender individual to hold a position in the U.S. executive branch. President Barack Obama appointed Simpson in 2010 to senior technical adviser in the Bureau of Industry and Security at the Department of Commerce.”

Incredible!

Obama’s Deal with Iran Responsible for More Wars in the Middle East

The Telegraph wrote on March 12:

“Barack Obama’s ill-advised nuclear deal with Iran has kickstarted a new arms race. There is now a genuine risk that Saudi Arabia and its allies will become involved in a dangerous military confrontation with Iran…

“Iran’s decision to test-fire two ballistic missiles emblazoned with the legend ‘Israel must be wiped out’ in Hebrew is not the sort of reassuring conduct one would expect from a country that claims it wants better relations with the outside world. Timed to coincide with US Vice President Joe Biden’s tour of the Gulf states and Israel, the missile launches will not only be seen as an unnecessarily provocative act of aggression by countries like Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. They are also deeply embarrassing for the Obama administration, which is still trying to reassure its allies in the Gulf and Israel that its controversial nuclear deal with Tehran has ended Iranian attempts to build nuclear weapons – for the time being, at least.

“Only a few weeks ago naive enthusiasts of President Obama’s nuclear deal claimed that gains made by so-called moderates in Iran’s recent elections for the majlis, or parliament, as well as the Assembly of Experts, demonstrated Iran was well on the way to reform and a more transparent system of government. What these modern-day fellow travellers – and they include many leading lights in our own Foreign Office [in the UK] – fail to appreciate is that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s uncompromising Supreme Leader and guardian of Iran’s Islamic revolution, personally vetted all of the candidates. Thus only those with impeccable revolutionary credentials were allowed to stand. So much for Iran’s new spirit of reform.

“For, despite the modest gains made by these so-called reformers, the fact remains that the real power in Iran lies with the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), whose duty is both to defend and export Iran’s revolutionary values throughout the Muslim world – with special focus on neighbouring Arab states. Not only do the Revolutionary Guards control a significant percentage of the Iranian economy – including the country’s vast oil reserves. They are also responsible for Iran’s defence and security policy which, contrary to Washington’s confident predictions in the wake of the nuclear deal, has led to a significant upsurge in Iranian meddling in neighbouring Arab states. The fear now among pro-Western Arab leaders is that Iran will embark on a military build-up funded by the estimated $150 billion Tehran is set to receive as a result of the sanctions being lifted.

“The missile tests will certainly be seen by many regional leaders in that context, particularly as many Western intelligence experts are convinced the missiles are being designed specifically to carry nuclear warheads. In addition to continuing to develop its ballistic missile programme, Tehran last month also concluded a deal with Russia to improve its missile defences. One of the more obvious failings of Mr Obama’s nuclear deal is that it allows Iran, a country which the CIA says once had an illicit nuclear weapons programme, to continue development work on its ballistic missiles. Washington no doubt believes there is no harm in Tehran building missiles that can strike at the heart of Europe when it does not have the means to fit them with nuclear warheads…

“Not surprisingly, the Gulf states have now embarked on developing a multi-billion pound anti-missile shield of their own. If nothing else, Mr Obama’s legacy to the Middle East will have been to initiate a new arms race. In Israel, too, intelligence officials take the same view about Iran’s long-term nuclear ambitions, which no doubt explains Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent decision to cancel his proposed visit to Washington later this month… For the past two weeks Saudi Arabia has been hosting the Middle East’s biggest-ever military exercise – Operation Desert Thunder. An estimated 20 Muslim nations have taken part in the exercise which is aimed at strengthening the ability of the Saudi-led coalition to defend itself against the growing threat posed by Islamist-inspired terror groups, such as Daesh. But the possibility should not be ruled out that one day these same forces could be used to defend Sunni Arab regimes from the threat posed by Shia Iran.

“In Yemen, Saudi Arabia is already fighting a proxy war against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, while Riyadh has made no secret of its determination to secure the overthrow of the pro-Iranian regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the Obama administration continues to hail the merits of its nuclear deal with Iran, which it insists will form the centrepiece of Mr Obama’s legacy when his presidency concludes later this year. Yet if Iran continues with unprovoked acts of aggression, such as its latest test-firing of ballistic missiles, then there is a genuine risk that Saudi Arabia and its allies will become involved in a direct, and far more dangerous, military confrontation with Iran. And that is most certainly not the kind of legacy Mr Obama had in mind when he concluded his ill-advised deal with the ayatollahs.”

As it has been pointed out, this deal with Iran was one of the worst “deals” ever made in the history of the United States. But God prophesied in His Word that in these end times, the leaders of the USA and the UK, as well as Canada, would be “blind” to reality.

Regarding the differences between Sunnis and Shias, the paper wrote:

“The split between Sunnis and Shias begins with the death of the prophet Mohammed in 632 AD, and the battle to succeed him as the first Muslim caliph. Sunnis say his brother-in-law Abu Bakr was the rightful heir; Shias say it should have been his son-in-law, Ali. The two groups differ over the nature of the Mahdi (or messiah), the role of Islamic law in society, the correct way to pray, and which texts beside the Quran are canon. Sunnis are the largest group, comprising 80 to 90 per cent of Muslims and spread across the Islamic world from Pakistan to North Africa. Shias are a minority in most places – they were persecuted under the caliphs and the Ottomans – but hold power in Iran, where theirs is the state religion, and Iraq, where they form two thirds of the population. The conflict has ebbed and flowed for centuries now; it won’t end soon.”

The Toll of Syria’s Cursed War

AFP wrote on March 11:

“Syria’s war has killed more than a quarter of a million people, uprooted over half the population and left much of the country in ruins since it erupted five years ago…

“Among those killed are around 80,000 civilians, including 13,500 children. Far more people are feared dead, however, with an unknown number killed in detention at the hands of the government, rebels or jihadists. UN investigators in February accused the regime of “extermination” in its jails and detention centres. Handicap International, a French non-governmental organisation, said earlier this month that one million people had been wounded in the war. And a Syrian aid group in January denounced the incessant bombing of medical facilities in the country, where it said 177 hospitals had been destroyed and nearly 700 health workers killed since 2011.

“In January, the United Nations said that 13.5 million people out of a pre-conflict population of 23 million had been forced from their homes. The charity Save the Children said this month that at least 250,000 children are living under siege, with many forced to eat animal feed or leaves to survive… About 4.7 million Syrians have fled to neighbouring countries… Most of the refugees are in neighbouring countries, notably Turkey, which has become the biggest host country with more than 2.7 million on its soil… It is followed by Lebanon with over one million. More than two thirds of these live in ‘extreme poverty,’ according to the UN. Over 630,000 people have taken refuge in Jordan… Around 225,000 Syrians have fled to Iraq and 137,000 to Egypt.

“The refugees face poverty, health problems and growing tensions with local communities. Many live in makeshift camps and face significant restrictions on integration. While the vast majority of refugees remain in the region, hundreds of thousands have tried to make the perilous journey to Europe, though not all reached its shores alive.

“Experts say the conflict has set Syria’s economy back by three decades, with almost all its revenues cut off and most of the infrastructure destroyed… The education and health systems are in ruins. Exports have plunged by 90 percent since 2011… According to the oil minister, direct and indirect losses in the oil and gas sector amount to $58 billion (52 billion euros)… Syria is living almost without electricity, with 83 percent of lighting no longer working.”

These are some of the CURSES of war. Why would ANY decent human being, let alone a true Christian, advocate or engage in war? Thankfully, when Jesus Christ returns and establishes God’s righteous government on earth, wars with all their curses will be things of the past.

Russia Announces Withdrawal from Syria

Bloomberg wrote on March 14:

“Russia said it will start withdrawing forces from Syria in a surprise move… Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose military intervention last year in support of Assad turned the tide in Syria’s five-year civil war, said the partial pullout should begin on Tuesday. A Russian air base and a naval facility will continue to function, he said in Moscow. Assad didn’t request the withdrawal, said Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov…

“For Putin, who’s worked with the U.S. to promote diplomacy in Syria even though the two powers backed opposite sides in the war, it’s an opportunity to display peacemaking credentials while preserving the gains Assad’s army made under Russian air cover…

“Putin and President Barack Obama discussed the Russian plan to withdraw troops by phone on Monday, the White House said. Obama welcomed the reduction in violence since the U.S. and Russia helped broker a truce last month, but said that ‘continuing offensive actions by Syrian regime forces risk undermining’ both that truce and the Geneva talks…

“The Syrian presidency said on Twitter that Russia had promised to continue supporting Syria’s fight against terrorism. The definition of who’s a terrorist in Syria, as well as Assad’s future role, has been at the root of the disagreement between Russia and the U.S., which says moderate rebels against the regime have also been targeted by Putin’s intervention…

“Salem al-Muslet, a spokesman for the main opposition group, the High Negotiations Committee, said Russia is largely to blame for the current state of the conflict…

“The U.S. has softened calls for Assad’s removal in recent months… Putin’s latest announcement is ‘a symbolic gesture to sweeten the opposition’s pill, because Assad is clearly not going to go away even if Russia slightly reduces its operations,’ said Anton Lavrov, an independent Russian military analyst… At talks in Geneva earlier on Monday, there were few signs that Assad or the opposition are willing to make major compromises… Syria’s regime is indicating that it will only accept a limited role for the opposition in government, and that discussing Assad’s position is a ‘red line.’

“Putin said that the Russian bombing campaign had allowed the Syrian army to ‘take the initiative on nearly all fronts.’… Viktor Ozerov, head of the defense committee in the upper house of Russia’s parliament, said by phone that if the Syrian army isn’t capable of finishing off Islamic State, ‘we can come back.’”

The CURSE of Nuclear Power Plants… Notice Japan’s Terrible Example

Reuters wrote on March 9:

“The robots sent in to find highly radioactive fuel at Fukushima’s nuclear reactors have ‘died’: a subterranean ‘ice wall’ around the crippled plant meant to stop groundwater from becoming contaminated has yet to be finished. And authorities still don’t know how to dispose of highly radioactive water stored in an ever mounting number of tanks around the site. Five years ago, one of the worst earthquakes in history triggered a 10-meter high tsunami that crashed into the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station causing multiple meltdowns. Nearly 19,000 people were killed or left missing and 160,000 lost their homes and livelihoods. Today, the radiation at the Fukushima plant is still so powerful it has proven impossible to get into its bowels to find and remove the extremely dangerous blobs of melted fuel rods…

“The fuel rods melted through their containment vessels in the reactors, and no one knows exactly where they are now. This part of the plant is so dangerous to humans, Tepco has been developing robots, which can swim under water and negotiate obstacles in damaged tunnels and piping to search for the melted fuel rods. But as soon as they get close to the reactors, the radiation destroys their wiring and renders them useless, causing long delays… Each robot has to be custom-built for each building…

“What to do with the nearly million tonnes of radioactive water is one of the biggest challenges, said Akiro Ono, the site manager. Ono said he is ‘deeply worried’ the storage tanks will leak radioactive water in the sea – as they have done several times before…”

Nuclear power plants are a great danger to the welfare and even survival of mankind.

Catholic Church Faces Deep Crisis

Newsmax wrote on March 16:

“Pope [Emeritus] Benedict XVI warns that the Catholic Church is facing a ‘deep crisis’ following reforms of the Second Vatican Council that was held in the 1960s…  Among Benedict’s concerns are the belief that other religions are equal to Christianity in obtaining salvation and the change in dogma that lessens fears that one’s eternal salvation can be lost. ‘The missionaries of the 16th century were convinced that the unbaptized person is lost forever,’ Benedict said. ‘After the [Second Vatican] Council, this conviction was definitely abandoned. The result was a two-sided, deep crisis. Without this attentiveness to the salvation, the Faith loses its foundation.’

“As for the universalist view that all those outside the Catholic Church can be saved, which was adopted after Vatican II, Benedict asks, ‘Why should you try to convince the people to accept the Christian faith when they can be saved even without it?’ The view also prevents Catholics themselves from seeing a need to practice their faith, he said…

“Even less acceptable, Benedict said, ‘is the solution proposed by the pluralistic theories of religion, for which all religions, each in its own way, would be ways of salvation and, in this sense, must be considered equivalent in their effects.’”

How America Got Its Name

The Local wrote on March 11:

“Christopher Columbus is often credited with first ‘discovering’ the Americas for Europe, despite the fact that [he] thought he was somewhere in Asia most of the time. But back in the 16th century, another man who also braved the Atlantic around the same time was believed by many across Europe to have been the first European on New World soil. So it makes sense that North and South America would derive their names from that clever cartographer and adventurer, Amerigo Vespucci.

“But it wasn’t Vespucci himself who gave this land its current name…  Around 1502, a letter by Vespucci entitled Mundus Novus (New World) was published and reprinted across Europe. It described his voyage to South America between 1501 and 1502 and recognized that this was previously unknown land…

“By 1507, Martin Waldseemüller, a German cartographer, was tasked by academics in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, France with creating an updated world map, based in part on Vespucci’s findings, along with the help of fellow German Matthias Ringmann. The two wanted to pay tribute to Vespucci and decided to use the feminine version of the navigator’s Christian name, Americus. ‘Now indeed these regions are fairly well known and Amerigo Vespucci has found another, fourth part, for which I see no reason why anyone could properly disapprove of a name derived from that of Amerigo, the discoverer, a man of sagacious genius,’ they wrote in commentary about the map. A suitable form would be Amerige, meaning [in Greek] Land of Amerigo, or America, since Europe and Asia have received women’s names.’

“But rather than going for the Greek ending they made it Latin. So over what we now call Brazil, Waldseemüller wrote for the very first time ‘America’… The two young Germans never intended the title to apply to the entirety of the land mass, but the map’s uniqueness made it highly in-demand, also serving as the model for the world’s first printed globe.

“But not long after the maps became a smash hit, Waldseemüller regretted it and tried to take back the name America. He ultimately lost confidence in Vespucci as being the first European to set foot in the New World and on a 1513 map, he called the territory ‘Terra Incognita’ or ‘Unknown Land’ instead… But… he could not undo the ripple in history that he had set into motion. The name America caught on and by 1538, Gerardus Mercator made the first map applying the term to both North and South America.”

In biblical prophecy, the USA is not known as “America,” but as Manasseh, a son of Joseph and grandson of Israel, or as the modern “house of Israel” (together with other English-speaking countries such as the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).

The Changing Face of the USA

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 6:

“History is being written right now in America. That is always exciting. But in this case it is also dramatic. An entire country is changing before our eyes. Though he may not have started it, Donald Trump is the man who is now speeding up and steering this process in a very dangerous direction. Like a bulldozer on a rampage, he is destroying the foundations of this freedom-loving and once so self-assured nation…

“The country seems rotten, like a once mighty tree that is leaning precariously. It remains to be seen if it can weather the gathering storm or will come crashing down. In the eyes of a growing number of voters, the country’s elite, which only thinks of itself, is also rotten. It is an elite that, despite the country’s economic well-being, has starved the middle-class and robbed them of the fruits of their labor. The fact that more and more Americans are growing angry is understandable…

“Trump is the tough guy many people feel could finally change things… By ‘Super Tuesday’ at the latest, it has been clear that Trump’s message is reaching broad swaths of American voters in a way that no other Republican has been able to do, with the possible exception of Ronald Reagan. Women and men, blacks and whites, young and old, rich and poor, in southern as well as northern states: everyone is getting the message.

“Trump’s success says a lot about Americans and about the state of the nation. But what can be inferred from these messages is not good. Not good for America and not good for Germany and America’s other allies.

“The country is changing… Global responsibility is being replaced by nationalist egocentricity…

“At the moment many people are asking ‘why?’ But explanations so far are at best akin to tentative attempts to describe an unknown landscape. Even in Washington, with its corps of political professionals, erudite think tanks, well-traveled diplomats and seasoned journalists, even here there are no answers to be found – only silence.

“… who is to say that this virus will stop at the party’s borders? It is also not a forgone conclusion that Hillary Clinton, should she be her party’s nominee, will be able to derail the increasingly likely Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump.”

The wording is quite interesting about America’s “rottenness” or “sickness,” as this is exactly the terminology used by God about the modern House of Israel—mainly the USA and the UK—as well as the House of Judah (compare Isaiah 1:4-6; 5:24; Hosea 5:12).

Republican Contested Convention in July?

Bloomberg wrote on March 4:

“Donald Trump’s dominant performance on Super Tuesday, which included victories in seven of 11 states, has prompted a swift and sudden shift in strategy among anti-Trump forces within the Republican Party. Rather than narrow the field, many now believe the only way to stop him is for the current candidates to stay in, deny Trump the 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination, and force a contested convention in July…

“With no clear nominee, there would be a contested convention in July. If no candidate secures 1,237 votes on the first ballot, many delegates obliged to vote for Trump would be free to back someone else on subsequent ballots… The party hasn’t faced a contested convention since 1976, and it was resolved on the first ballot…

“During a blistering speech Thursday calling Trump ‘a fraud’ who must not be president, Romney all but endorsed the strategy, encouraging major candidates to stay in the race and urging voters to back anyone but Trump…

“Given his broad base of support among voters—young and old, men and women, rich and poor, moderate and conservative—[Trump is] seen as unlikely to be overtaken by any candidate…

“The new strategy to stop Trump hinges heavily on March 15, and requires victories by Rubio and Kasich in their winner-take- all home states—Florida awards 99 delegates and Ohio awards 66 delegates…

“The idea of trying to snag the nomination from Trump at the convention has already proven controversial on the right. Figures like Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of Fox News’s parent company 21 First Century Fox, and Republican strategist Alex Castellanos argue that the GOP should rally around Trump if he continues to lead the pack. ‘Trump has earned the nomination,’ Castellanos told the Washington Post Wednesday. ‘He won it, fair and square and we should respect that. Donald Trump whipped the establishment and it is too late for the limp GOP establishment to ask their mommy to step in and rewrite the rules because they were humiliated for their impotence.’

“John McCain, the party’s 2008 nominee, echoed Romney’s criticisms of Trump in a statement on Thursday, and called on Republican voters ‘to think long and hard about who they want to be our next Commander-in-Chief and leader of the free world.’

“If there is a contested convention, the chances of chaos are high…”

It is interesting that both Romney and McCain, previous Republican nominees and prototypes of the Republican establishment, have failed in their past efforts to become President.

Romney the Nominee at Brokered Convention?

The Washington Post wrote on March 6:

“Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, refused Sunday to rule out becoming the nominee again this year at a brokered convention, though he insisted he couldn’t imagine that happening. ‘I don’t think anyone in our party should say, “Oh no, even if the people of the party wanted me to be president, I would say no to it.” No one is going to say that,’ Mr. Romney said on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’

“Speculation abounded that Mr. Romney was setting himself up for a surprise nomination last week when he unleashed a brutal denouncement of front-runner Donald Trump, urging voters to support anyone but the billionaire real estate mogul in upcoming primaries to force a contested convention this summer in Cleveland, Ohio.”

Republicans Revolt Against GOP Establishment

The New York Times wrote on March 4:

“From Michigan to Louisiana to California on Friday, rank-and-file Republicans expressed mystification, dismissal and contempt regarding the instructions that their party’s most high-profile leaders were urgently handing down to them: Reject and defeat Donald J. Trump. Their angry reactions, in the 24 hours since Mitt Romney and John McCain urged millions of voters to cooperate in a grand strategy to undermine Mr. Trump’s candidacy, have captured the seemingly inexorable force of a movement that still puzzles the Republican elite and now threatens to unravel the party they hold dear.

“In interviews, even lifelong Republicans who cast a ballot for Mr. Romney four years ago rebelled against his message and plan… The furious campaign now underway to stop Mr. Trump and the equally forceful rebellion against it captured the essence of the party’s breakdown over the past several weeks: Its most prominent guardians, misunderstanding their own voters, antagonize them as they try to reason with them, driving them even more energetically to Mr. Trump’s side…

“Steve Forbes, the publisher and two-time Republican presidential candidate, summed up the mood… ‘Parties,’ he said, ‘don’t usually commit suicide,’ suggesting the party was well on its way with Mr. Trump. The problem, for figures like Mr. Forbes and Mr. Romney, is that Mr. Trump’s supporters seem profoundly uninterested at the moment with the image, expectations or traditions of the Republican Party… They are, in many cases, hostile to it… Voters have not taken kindly to the recommendation [by Mr. Romney], describing the request as a patronizing directive from an elite figure who thoroughly misunderstands their feelings of alienation from the political system…

“Conservative talk radio shows lit up Friday with incensed callers who said they were ‘livid,’ ‘mad’ and ‘on the verge of tears’ as they listened to Mr. Romney scoldingly describe what he called Mr. Trump’s misogyny, vulgarity and dishonesty, and urged them to abandon him… In interviews across the country, Republican voters suggested that Mr. Romney’s move was presumptuous and described him as out of touch and ineffectual… Frustrated Republicans seized on Mr. Romney’s status as a party insider who was insulated from the realities, indignities and rage of average Americans headed to the polls this year…”

Germany’s Vice Chancellor Attacks Trump

The Local wrote March 6:

“Germany’s Vice Chancellor [and economy minister] Sigmar Gabriel said Sunday that US billionaire Donald Trump, frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, poses a threat to peace, social cohesion and prosperity. Gabriel labelled the brash real estate mogul a ‘right-wing populist’ who, like Marine Le Pen of France and Geert Wilders of the Netherlands, promises voters unsettled by globalisation a return to a protected ‘fairytale world’.

“Whether Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen or Geert Wilders—all these right-wing populists are not only a threat to peace and social cohesion but also to economic development,” the centre-left Social Democrat told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.”

Foreign Diplomats Voicing Alarm about Trump

Reuters reported on March 7:

“Foreign diplomats are expressing alarm to U.S. government officials about what they say are inflammatory and insulting public statements by Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, according to senior U.S. officials.

“Officials from Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia have complained in recent private conversations, mostly about the xenophobic nature of Trump’s statements…

“U.S. officials said it was highly unusual for foreign diplomats to express concern, even privately, about candidates in the midst of a presidential campaign. U.S. allies in particular usually don’t want to be seen as meddling in domestic politics, mindful that they will have to work with whoever wins.

“Senior leaders in several countries… have already made public comments criticizing Trump’s positions…

“There are also concerns abroad that the United States would become more insular under Trump, who has pledged to tear up international trade agreements and push allies to take a bigger role in tackling Middle East conflicts. ‘European diplomats are constantly asking about Trump’s rise with disbelief and, now, growing panic,’ said a senior NATO official…”

European Far Right Groups Are Looking at Trump

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 4:

“The list of groups and individuals supporting Donald Trump’s candidacy reads like the Who’s Who of the international extreme right: The leader of the Dutch Freedom Party Geert Wilders, the founder of France’s Front National Jean-Marie Le Pen, the head of Italy’s Lega Nord Matteo Salvini, Greece’s Golden Dawn party, as well as the Ku Klux Klan and the black supremacists of the Nation of Islam in the US… Trump’s radical statements on issues near and dear to the extreme right, such as illegal immigration – but also his delivery and tone – have hit a nerve with Europe’s far right….

“Trump, however, is not supported by all groups on the far right. More established parties, such as Norway’s Progress Party, which is part of the government there, or Denmark’s People’s Party, the country’s second largest party, have distanced themselves from Trump… they deem him simply too controversial and too far to the right.

“That same split is apparent in France, where Trump has been endorsed by the founder of Front National, Jean-Marie Le Pen, but not by his daughter, current Front National leader Marine Le Pen…

“Trump’s status as a political outsider has only added to his appeal among Europe’s far right… Trump is the perfect study in political campaigning in the 21st century… Trump’s efforts at reaching out to particular groups in society, notably the working class and people who feel left behind by globalization can be easily applied to a European context as well.”

Legal Trouble for Hillary Clinton?

LawNewZ reported on March 3:

“The FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server just took a very significant turn, legally speaking… the U.S. Department of Justice (likely through a federal judge) granted immunity to Clinton’s aide Bryan Pagliano who helped set-up her privately maintained email server. We checked in with our legal sources from former federal prosecutors (both Republicans and Democrats) to Washington D.C. insiders, most agree that the immunity deal is a serious step in the FBI’s investigation for several reasons…

“Pagliano’s immunity is likely the result of what’s called a ‘proffer.’ A proffer is an agreement between a prosecutor and a witness to provide information about a crime, with the assurance he won’t be prosecuted. It’s kind of like a sneak peak of what the prosecutors will get if the witness ends up giving testimony… Generally speaking, the government is not going to offer immunity unless the information they are getting in return is beneficial to their investigation…

“However, it is important to note, an immunity deal doesn’t necessarily mean someone will end up getting indicted… While immunity agreements are somewhat routine in federal investigations, not all federal investigations involve the Democratic presidential front runner. So every step along the way does matter… Whether Clinton’s campaign will admit it or not, an immunity deal is, at the very least, a clear indication that the FBI is moving forward with their investigation at a very rapid pace.”

The Latest “Wisdom” of Pope Francis

Newsmax wrote on March 4:

“Pope Francis referred to an ‘Arab invasion’ during a speech to a French Christian group this week, adding that Europe has been enhanced by previous influxes of people. The pontiff also noted that Europe has seen many invasions over the course of its history… Europe has been facing huge waves of migrants and asylum seekers, many of them from Syria and Iraq…

“‘Today we can talk about an Arab invasion,’ the Roman Catholic leader said in the comments dated Thursday. ‘It is a social fact.’

“L’Osservatore Romano reported the pope hastened to add Europe has always been able to ‘go forward and find itself enhanced by the exchange among cultures,’ after saying that Europe is the ‘only continent that can bring about a certain unity to the world.'”

The Bible clearly states that Europe will try to bring unity to the world, but this attempt will end up in chaos and war.

Macedonia Closes Borders

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 9:

“Macedonia has closed its borders completely to migrants, a police official has said. This makes it the fourth nation [in addition to Croatia, Slovenia and Serbia] to do so in just a day, effectively shutting off the path used by many refugees to cross Europe.

“This decision leaves more than 400 people with nowhere to go in a no man’s land between Serbia and Macedonia, refusing to return to Macedonia and barred entry to Serbia.”

German AfD Condemns Cameron

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 9:

“The MEPs from Germany’s populist Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) party face expulsion from its conservative alliance in the European Parliament that includes British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party. Following a meeting on Tuesday evening, the European Conservative and Reformists Group (ECR) released a brief statement about its two AfD members Beatrix von Storch and Marcus Pretzell… which read: ‘The ECR Bureau met this evening and has invited the AfD to leave the ECR Group before March 31, otherwise a motion will be tabled to expel them at its next meeting on April 12.’… no reasons were given…

“But von Storch and Pretzell apparently won’t go quietly. In a scathing statement posted on her Facebook page, von Storch condemned the ECR meeting as a ‘farce.’… ‘German and British representatives presented themselves as lackeys of Merkel and Cameron.’…

“The AfD sees the threat… as a cynical strategic move that would benefit… the German chancellor and the British PM – ahead of crucial domestic votes for the two leaders. The AfD is currently polling in double figures in all three states holding regional elections this Sunday – Baden-Württemberg, Saxony-Anhalt and Rhineland-Palatinate – so it could help Merkel to see them damaged in public.

“Meanwhile, Cameron, who is campaigning for Britain to remain in the European Union in a referendum this summer, is likely to be keen to cut ties with the AfD… According to the AfD, Cameron needs a ‘rotten compromise to deceive his voters in the referendum on the Brexit one last time.’ ‘Cameron can’t achieve substantial reforms of the European agreements… So why should he work together with the AfD, the only party in Germany that is working towards substantial reforms of the European agreements?’ The pair also accused the British PM of wanting German tax money to be able to fund ‘short-term referendum gifts’ for British voters.

“The ECR, which represents 75 MEPs, was born of the uncertainty over the EU… The group’s stated aim is ‘urgent reform’ of the EU, while many of the AfD’s positions suggest a complete re-ordering of the bloc. The ECR was founded in 2009 as a more skeptical conservative alternative in the EP to the European People’s Party group (EPP), which includes Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, and which has 216 MEPs.”

German AfD on the Rise

The Local wrote on March 9:

“Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party risks a drubbing at key state elections Sunday as voters punish the German leader for her liberal refugee policy, while the right-wing populist AfD eyes major gains as it scoops up the protest vote. More than 12 million voters are due to elect three new regional parliaments…  in the so-called Super Sunday polls. The elections are the biggest since a record influx of refugees to Germany, and disgruntled voters are expected to seize on the opportunity to hit the ruling coalition where it hurts…

“Merkel has been under intense pressure to change course and shut Germany’s doors after 1.1 million refugees — many of them Syrians — arrived in Europe’s biggest economy last year alone. But she has resolutely refused to impose a cap on arrivals, insisting instead on common European action that includes distributing refugees among the EU’s 28 member states… public opinion towards her stance was divided, and AfD has capitalised on the darkening mood…

“In what could be a preview of Sunday’s polls, local election results published Monday in Hesse show support for AfD reaching 13.2 percent, propelling it to become the third biggest party in the western state. Although the upstart party has seats in five regional parliaments and is represented in the European Parliament, it has so far made its biggest gains in former communist eastern states that still lag western Germany in jobs and prosperity. But its inroads into western states have sparked alarm in a Germany mindful of its Nazi past…

“Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel warned voters that ‘we have a lot to lose if we deal carelessly with social stability and democracy’. Merkel herself described AfD as a ‘party that does not bring society together and offers no appropriate solutions to problems, but only stokes prejudices and divisions’, while Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble branded them a ‘shame for Germany’.

“Some 142 civic groups, including police unions, Jewish and Muslim organisations and aid groups, also published a joint appeal urging voters to turn up at the polls as a show of strength ‘against all forms of hate, racism, prejudices or violence’.”

Somehow, this fight of the German political establishment against the AdF reminds us of and seems to mirror the fight of the American Republican establishment against Donald Trump.  

Is ECB Chief Mario Draghi to Be Fired?

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 10:

“He’s done it again. Believe it or not, ECB chief Mario Draghi has lowered interest rates yet again. The benchmark refinancing rate now stands at zero-point-zero percent, meaning the expropriation of savers isn’t only continuing – it’s getting worse.

“The central bank’s controversial asset-purchasing program will be expanded. Instead of buying bonds worth 60 billion euros ($66.8 billion) per month, the ECB is now going to purchase 80 million euros’ worth. The program will now also entail buying corporate bonds. The bogus monetary policy of Mario Draghi continues.

“The problem for Europe’s top guardian of the euro is that none of his previous measures has had a tangible, positive impact. On the contrary, inflation, which Draghi has wanted to push up by printing more and more money, still hovers around zero. And the eurozone economy isn’t really picking up much either…

“The owners of the huge amount of cheap money available have been looking for other ways to invest as you can’t just let it rest under your pillow. The result is that big bubbles are in the process of forming, whether in the real estate market, the art market or elsewhere.

“So, what exactly is pushing Draghi to pump even more money into markets, if his plan has failed miserably thus far?… And why does he stubbornly stick to an inflation target of little under 2 percent? It pretty much looks like an artificial target now…

“What Draghi is doing comes close to running amok. Cheap money destroys trust in the long term and makes people addicted. It also prompts eurozone governments to delay required reforms. The patient isn’t healed automatically by administering a greater dose of the same medication. The redistribution of money from the north to the south is continuing.

“For highly indebted eurozone nations such as Spain, Portugal or Greece, Draghi’s policy is a blessing. For the eurozone as a whole the iceberg is approaching the eurozone’s Titanic fast… the Italian would be well-advised to take his leave soon.”

EU Deal with Turkey Under Attack

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 9:

“EU parliamentarians across party lines have expressed grave reservations about a deal aimed at curbing migration to Europe. Many questioned whether the agreement with Ankara violated international conventions…

“The EU-Turkey deal lauded by German Chancellor Angela Merkel as a possible ‘breakthrough’ in the refugee crisis met with sometimes massive criticism after being presented to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday. The deal… would see Ankara take back migrants and asylum seekers trying to cross to Europe. In return, the EU would resettle one Syrian refugee for everyone that had been forced to return to Turkish soil.

“In addition, Turkey is to receive billions of euros in financial aid to care for the migrants and refugees, and has been promised additional concessions such as visa-free access to the EU for Turkish citizens… Some EU parliamentarians slammed the agreement with Turkey as an inhuman trade-off…

“Guy Verhofstadt, the president of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group…  said the deal gave Erdogan ‘the keys to the gates of Europe’… [He] said the agreement meant that Turkey had too much control over who was classed as a refugee and thus allowed to enter the EU. A Kurd from Iraq, for example, could be denied access to the EU… He also predicted that the deal would backfire, with migrants looking for other routes to the EU, such as through Italy, Albania, Malta or Bulgaria.

“Parliamentarians also warned about giving too many concessions to Turkey and its increasingly authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, under fire for recent government takeovers of opposition media and attacks on Kurds [note the next article].

“Several conservative politicians, on the other hand, supported the plan.”

Turmoil in Turkey after Government’s Dictatorial Measures Against Freedom of Press and Religion

Reuters reported on March 5:

“Turkish police fired tear gas and rubber bullets on Saturday to disperse protesters outside the country’s biggest newspaper [“Zaman”] after authorities seized control of it in a crackdown on a religious group whose leader the government accuses of treason.

“A court on Friday appointed an administrator to run [Zaman]… Rights groups and European officials condemned the takeover, seeing it as proof the government silences dissident views… European Parliament President Martin Schulz tweeted the takeover was ‘yet another blow to press freedom’…

“In Berlin, Norbert Roettgen, chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the German Bundestag and a senior lawmaker in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, said: ‘Not only the violent action against a critical newspaper, but also the fact that the government takes over the whole paper is a severe blow by the Turkish leadership against the freedom of press.’

“Critics have accused the European Union of largely turning a blind eye to Turkey’s worsening rights record because it needs its help curbing the record flow of refugees and migrants…

“Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the raid on Zaman and its sister publications amounted to a ‘government takeover.’ It is ‘nothing but a veiled move by the president to eradicate opposition media and scrutiny of government policies,’ said Emma Sinclair-Webb, HRW’s senior Turkey researcher.”

God does not have many good things to say about end-time Turkey, biblical Edom.

Big Brother not only in Turkey: FBI Spying on US School Children

Salon wrote on March 6:

“Under new guidelines, the FBI is instructing high schools across the country to report students who criticize government policies and ‘western corruption’ as potential future terrorists, warning that ‘anarchist extremists’ are in the same category as ISIS and young people who are poor, immigrants or travel to ‘suspicious’ countries are more likely to commit horrific violence.

“Based on the widely unpopular British ‘anti-terror’ mass surveillance program, the FBI’s ‘Preventing Violent Extremism in Schools’ guidelines, released in January, are almost certainly designed to single out and target Muslim-American communities. However, in its caution to avoid the appearance of discrimination, the agency identifies risk factors that are so broad and vague that virtually any young person could be deemed dangerous and worthy of surveillance, especially if [he or] she is socio-economically marginalized or politically outspoken. This overwhelming threat is then used to justify a massive surveillance apparatus, wherein educators and pupils function as extensions of the FBI by watching and informing on each other.

“The FBI’s justification for such surveillance is based on McCarthy-era theories of radicalization, in which authorities monitor thoughts and behaviors that they claim to lead to acts of violent subversion, even if those people being watched have not committed any wrongdoing. This model has been widely discredited as a violence prevention method, including by the U.S. government, but it is now being imported to schools nationwide as official federal policy…

“According to the FBI’s educational materials for teenagers, circulated as a visual aide to their new guidelines, the following offenses constitute signs that ‘could mean that someone plans to commit violence’ and therefore should be reported: … ‘Using several different cell phones and private messaging apps’; and ‘Studying or taking pictures of potential targets (like a government building).’…

“‘Animal Rights Extremists and Environmental Extremists’ are placed alongside ‘white supremacy extremists’, ISIS and Al Qaeda as terrorists out to recruit high school students. The materials also instruct students to watch out for extremist propaganda messages that communicate criticisms of ‘corrupt western nations’ and express ‘government mistrust.’…

“The agency warns that online gaming ‘is sometimes used to communicate, train, or plan terrorist activities.’ Encryption, ominously referred to as ‘going dark,’ is often used to facilitate ‘extremism discussions,’ the agency states. In reality, encryption is a commonly used form of protection against government spying and identity theft and is often employed to safeguard financial transactions…

“The document and supplementary educational materials warn of a broad array of threats, including anti-abortion and white supremacist extremists. The Jewish Defense League is listed alongside Hizbollah and Al Qaeda as an imminent danger to young people in the United States… Cultural and religious differences, as well as criticisms of western imperialism, are repeatedly mentioned as risk factors for future extremism…”

This mass surveillance plan reminds us of dictatorial practices in Nazi Germany or in former East Germany under Russian control. The Obama Administration’s claim of preserving liberty and freedom has become a joke… and a dangerous one at that. At the same time, deeply disturbing comments from the Republican side are also of grave concern.

FBI’s Case Against Apple Fraudulent?

The Guardian wrote on March 9:

“Edward Snowden, the whistleblower whose NSA revelations sparked a debate on mass surveillance, has waded into the arguments over the FBI’s attempt to force Apple to help it unlock the iPhone 5C of one of the San Bernardino shooters. The FBI says that only Apple can deactivate certain passcode protections on the iPhone, which will allow law enforcement to guess the passcode by using brute-force.

“Talking via video link from Moscow to the Common Cause Blueprint for a Great Democracy conference, Snowden said: ‘The FBI says Apple has the ‘exclusive technical means’ to unlock the phone. Respectfully, that’s bull…’

“Snowden then went on to tweet his support for an American Civil Liberties Union report saying that the FBI’s claims in the case are fraudulent.”

In its report from March 7, the ACLU explained that the FBI could easily unlock the iPhone, concluding that the FBI was acting fraudulently:

“The FBI wants us to think that this case is about a single phone, used by a terrorist. But it’s a power grab: law enforcement has dozens of other cases where they would love to be able to compel software and hardware providers to build, provide, and vouch for [a] deliberately weakened code… If they win, future software updates will present users with a troubling dilemma. When we’re asked to install a software update, we won’t know whether it was compelled by a government agency (foreign or domestic), or whether it truly represents the best engineering our chosen platform has to offer.

“In short, they’re asking the public to grant them significant new powers that could put all of our communications infrastructure at risk, and to trust them to not misuse these powers. But they’re deliberately misleading the public (and the judiciary) to try to gain these powers. This is not how a trustworthy agency operates. We should not be fooled.”

Nancy Reagan Died

NBC News wrote on March 6:

“Nancy Reagan, one of the most high-profile and influential first ladies of the 20th century, has died. She was 94.  The cause of death was congestive heart failure… ‘We remain grateful for Nancy Reagan’s life, thankful for her guidance, and prayerful that she and her beloved husband are together again,’ President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama said in a statement. Barbara Bush, another influential former first lady, said in a statement: ‘Nancy Reagan was totally devoted to President Reagan, and we take comfort that they will be reunited once more. George and I send our prayers and condolences to her family.’…

“Reagan was an actress when she met Ronald Reagan in the early 1950s, then an actor and president of the Screen Actors Guild, according to a White House bio… They wed on March 4, 1952. Daughter Patti was born in October of that year and son Ron followed in 1958. Reagan already had a daughter, Maureen, and an adopted son, Michael, from his marriage to actress Jane Wyman.  Their marriage lasted 52 years, until Ronald Reagan’s death in 2004.

“While Ronald Reagan was governor of California from 1967 to 1975, Nancy Reagan worked with numerous charitable groups, and spent hours visiting veterans, the elderly, and the emotionally and physically handicapped… When her husband became president of the United States, First Lady Reagan continued her interest in these groups, and arguably became best known for her ‘Just Say No’ program fighting against drug abuse among youth.

“When Ronald was shot in 1981 by a would-be assassin, Nancy rushed to his side immediately, and later endured his nearly decade-long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. In recent years she broke with fellow Republicans in backing stem cell research as a way to possibly find a cure for Alzheimer’s.”

Newsmax added on March 6:

“As Reagan’s wife, political partner and adviser, she became one of America’s most potent first ladies…  Some critics lambasted Nancy Reagan as a meddlesome ‘dragon lady,’ derided her anti-drug campaign and ridiculed her for consulting an astrologer to schedule presidential events.

“President Reagan called this view of his wife ‘despicable fiction,’ saying in 1987: ‘The idea that she is involved in governmental decisions and so forth and all of this, and being a kind of dragon lady – there is nothing to that.'”

Vaccination Requirements in Jewish Camps

Even though taking the “politically correct” approach that vaccinations for children is a “must,” JTA nevertheless admits the following in its article of March 3 [we omitted the article’s polemic comments and those highly disputable opinions from doctors of the drug industry requiring vaccinations]:

“Some Jewish camps… stick to state vaccination laws, many allowing for personal or religious exemptions. California… joined West Virginia and Mississippi as one of only three states that outlaw personal or religious vaccine exemptions after passing a contested bill last summer… In 2014, the prominent Orthodox Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetzky called vaccines a ‘hoax.’ JTA found last year that a range of private Jewish day schools had low student vaccination rates due to the personal or religious exemption [beliefs]…

“Tamarack Camps’ announcement [not to allow any unvaccinated children to attend their camps] immediately started an online dispute. Dr. David Brownstein, the medical director of the Center for Holistic Medicine in West Bloomfield, Michigan — the upscale heart of Detroit’s Jewish community  — called the policy ‘draconian’ in a blog post the next day. ‘Perhaps Camp Tamarack is unaware that over $3 billion has been awarded by the Federal Government to children and adults injured by vaccines,’ Brownstein wrote. ‘I would like to see where Jewish law says it is safe to inject a neurotoxin into a baby or any living being.’…

“Tamarack Camps’ decision also caused a bit of a stir in and around the metro Detroit Jewish community. Dr. Kathy Erlich, a Jewish pediatrician against strict vaccine laws who worked in the camp’s medical clinic, resigned. And Miller, who wrote about Tamarack’s decision for Time, said at least one family left the camp over the policy.”

“Israel’s First Transgender Beauty Pageant Slated for May”

JTA wrote on March 3, 2016:

“Nearly 30 transgender Jews and Arabs auditioned Thursday at a Tel Aviv club for a place in the Miss Trans Israel pageant… Finalists will compete at a pageant in May, and the winner will represent Israel at the Miss Trans Star International pageant to be held in Spain in August.

“Israel is widely considered the most gay-friendly country in the Middle East, and gays openly serve in its military… at least one openly transgender soldier is currently serving in the Israel Defense Forces.

“However, in the halls of government, gay Israelis have long faced a firewall of religious parties that have blocked pro-LGBT legislation. Gay couples cannot marry, adopt children or have surrogate pregnancies in Israel, though the government does recognize adoptions and gay marriages performed abroad.”

New Survey on Divided Israel

JTA wrote on March 8:

“Coming just three years after Pew’s much-discussed study of Jewish-Americans, the Israel study depicts a country divided by religion and ethnicity, where Jews of opposing religious outlooks rarely associate and marriages that cross the Jewish-Arab divide almost never happen.

“Israel is 81 percent Jewish and 19 percent non-Jewish, according to the survey. Among the Jews, half are secular…

“Forty-eight percent of Jewish-Israelis agreed or strongly agreed with the statement ‘Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel.’ Slightly fewer (46 percent) disagreed or strongly disagreed. Support for removal draws largely from right-wing Israelis. Almost three-quarters (72 percent) of self-identified right-wing Jews agreed that Arabs should leave Israel, as did 71 percent of religious Zionists and 59 percent of the haredi Orthodox. Among left-wing Jews, 10 percent said yes to forcible transfer…

“Sixty-one percent of Jewish-Americans say ‘Israel and an independent Palestinian state can coexist peacefully,’ according to Pew’s 2013 survey, while only 43 percent of Jewish-Israelis feel similarly. Sixty-one percent of Jewish-Israelis say God gave Israel to the Jews, a view that even 51 percent of non-Orthodox Israelis endorsed. Only 40 percent of Jewish-Americans agree…

“Israelis are also more religious than Jewish-Americans. More than a quarter of Israelis attend weekly services, compared to about one-tenth of the Americans. Half of Jewish-Israelis believe in God with absolute certainty, compared to one-third of Jewish-Americans, and nearly half of Jewish-Israelis don’t handle money on Shabbat, while almost all Jewish-Americans do…

“Israelis vary widely in their religious observance. Most religious Israelis pray daily, while their secular counterparts can go years without setting foot in a synagogue. One quarter of Jewish-Israelis say they observe no religious traditions… Nearly all Jewish-Israelis attend a Passover seder and almost two-thirds keep a kosher home, including one-third of secular Israelis. By contrast, only 22 percent of Jewish-Americans keep a kosher kitchen. Four-fifths of Israelis, including two-thirds of secular Jews, refrain from eating pork. Nearly half of Israel’s Russian-speaking Jews (47 percent) do eat pork…

“On the whole, Jewish-Israelis maintain a broad definition of who is a Jew. Solid majorities believe someone can deny God’s existence, work on Shabbat, harshly criticize Israel and still be Jewish. But an overwhelming majority draws the line at believing in Jesus as the messiah. Only 18 percent of Jewish-Israelis — and 19 percent of haredim — say a Jew can believe in Jesus and remain Jewish. In the United States, fully one-third of Jews say belief in Jesus is compatible with being Jewish…”

As JTA reported on March 8, the survey has been strongly criticized by governmental officials and others as being inaccurate, but Alan Cooperman, the Pew study’s lead author, stands by the results.

Shocking–Scientific Paper Being Retracted because of Reference to the “Creator”

The Independent wrote on March 4:

“The paper… was written by a team of four researchers, three from Huazhong University in China, and one from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts. Published in the PLOS ONE journal, the fairly conventional study looked at the mechanics of how we grasp things, and involved the measurement of the hand movements of 30 participants…

“In the opening sentences of the study, it claims the link between muscles and hand movements is the product of ‘proper design by the Creator.’ Later, it says human hand coordination ‘should indicate the mystery of the Creator’s invention,’ and concludes by again claiming the mechanical architecture of the hand is the result of ‘proper design by the Creator.’

“Naturally, the multiple references to intelligent design in a reputable journal like PLOS ONE have stoked anger in the scientific community, and many people, including researchers who work as editors for the publication, are now calling for it to be retracted…”

The Independent then published the following Update:

“The journal has now announced the paper will be retracted.

“Commenting on the website, it wrote: ‘The PLOS ONE editors have followed up on the concerns raised about this publication… In light of the concerns identified, the PLOS ONE editors have decided to retract the article, the retraction is being processed and will be posted as soon as possible. We apologize for the errors and oversight leading to the publication of this paper.'”

This is again ample testimony of a God-defying abominable practice of scientists and the influence which they have on gullible people.  A world, being held captive by Satan, is of course not permitted to consider the possibility that God might have created man. In God’s inspired and infallible book, the Bible, it is declared that those scientists are “fools” and lack spiritual discernment and understanding, and we are warned not to believe their false and blasphemous teachings of the atheistic or agnostic hypothesis of evolution.

Does It Pay to Beg?

Daily Mail reported on March 4:

“The next time you’re despairing at the state of the world, here’s what you need to do. Catch a train to Wolverhampton, and sit down on a patch of damp pavement opposite the church of St Peter’s Collegiate. You’ll need to wrap up warm, and remember to bring a plastic cup. Make yourself a cardboard sign, nothing fancy, then go and sit cross-legged and wait. Within minutes, your spirits will be lifted by the overflowing milk of human kindness.

“That’s what I did on Thursday, following reports that a beggar in the West Midlands town was earning £300 to £500 a day. I couldn’t believe this to be true. In London, maybe, but Wolverhampton? Where the average salary is £18,500? Ridiculous! Yet no sooner had I plonked myself down at 7.50am than I saw how it might be possible…

“You may think me cynical — a London professional posing as homeless. But I was genuinely trying to understand why people with homes — and presumably with a fighting chance of getting a job — instead choose to beg in the cold. And, of course, all the money I raised has gone to a local Wolverhampton homeless charity (I paid for breakfast myself).

“Of course, many homeless people have genuine reasons for being on the streets. They often have dreadful background stories — drug addiction, domestic abuse, mental health issues and countless other problems. But there is a worrying rise in rogue beggars, people who aren’t actually rough sleeping, who have dawned upon the depressing truth that you can make more money on the streets than toiling away for the minimum wage of £6.70 an hour.

“This week, it was reported that only one in five beggars is genuinely homeless, while many are doing it to top up their benefits or even incomes from work. The Mail ran a story about a man who was caught on film clambering back into his £40,000 Audi sportscar, after a day begging in Newquay, Cornwall. In another case, a conman pretended to be an ex-paratrooper to earn £5,000 over six months by begging in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, last year. One woman admitted begging after leaving her office job each day to pay for a new kitchen. Then there’s the claim by a local Labour councillor that one beggar pretending to be homeless was making up to £500 a day — the equivalent of £2,500 a week — on the streets of Wolverhampton…

“The advice from experts and homeless charities is typically not to give money to beggars as it perpetuates the root problems of alcohol, drugs and dependency. John Bird, the founder of the Big Issue, wrote very passionately in this paper how giving money ‘locks the beggar in a continuing downward spiral of abject dependency and victimhood, where all self-respect, honesty and hope are lost.’ Mr Bird, who has dedicated his life to helping Britain’s homeless — estimated to number 3,569 — is no doubt right…

“I’m sorry to say, begging involves a lot of deception. For example, if you have raised enough money to buy yourself breakfast after just ten minutes, you can’t truthfully carry on claiming to be hungry… One bizarre man came over to loiter with me, moaning that he was being kept waiting in the cold by a student he was due to meet. He then said he was going to a gay bar later on. Perhaps he thought I was a rent boy. I shuddered to think what might happen to vulnerable young men in this situation. I shuffled off, fast… at the rate of money I was making — £12-£13 an hour — I’d have enough to check into a hotel by the evening, and buy myself a decent bottle of Cabernet Shiraz…”

John Kerry Under Attack for His Pro-EU Stance in Britain

The Daily Mail wrote on February 28:

“Barack Obama’s foreign policy chief is a one-time IRA sympathiser unfit to tell Britain to stay in the EU, Eurosceptic Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg has claimed. Mr Rees-Mogg, a leading ‘Out’ campaigner, sparked a diplomatic row by accusing US Secretary of State John Kerry of having harboured sympathies for suspected terrorists. The claim comes after Mr Kerry intervened in the referendum debate by saying the US had a ‘profound interest’ in the UK staying in the EU.

“But speaking with the protection of Parliamentary privilege, Mr Rees-Mogg told MPs that Mr Kerry had showed himself to be a ‘terrorist sympathiser’ when he held up a treaty in the mid-1980s allowing for the deportation of IRA activists from the US to the UK. ‘He is no friend of Britain,’ Mr Rees-Mogg said…

“Last night, Mr Rees-Mogg said: ‘You have to remember this debate about delaying extradition took place in the shadow of the IRA’s attempt at the wholesale murder of the British Government in the Brighton bombing.’ Last night, the State Department in Washington declined to comment on the row. An official said: ‘The UK’s relationship with the EU is a question for the British people and the British Government.’”

BBC Not Impartial

The Sun wrote on February 28:

“Leading Eurosceptics say [BBC] is at serious risk of breaching its rules of impartiality… Tory MP Andrew Bridgen… said: ‘The BBC is emerging as a cheerleader for those who want to remain in the EU.’ Fellow Tory Steve Baker, founder of Conservatives for Britain, added: ‘It is essential for democracy and the credibility of the BBC that our state broadcaster is, and is seen to be, scrupulously impartial.’… Mr Bridgen also claims the BBC has ‘crossed the line’ from impartial reporting to editorial comment… Mr Bridgen called on the BBC to provide full details of how it intends to uphold impartiality so the public can have ‘utmost faith in its integrity’… Mr Bridgen insisted: ‘The BBC and the EU have much in common. Both have an unhealthy air of entitlement to huge amounts of taxpayers’ money, they resent scrutiny of their affairs, they are both unaccountable and undemocratic.’…”

The BBC may be following the lead of American broadcasters, where you can find virtually NO impartial and objective reporting. It is appalling and deeply troublesome how big manipulating institutions such as CNN, NBC, FOX NEWS or MSNBC have been taking political sides for parties and candidates in the presidential campaigns. A distinction between “reporting,” “editorializing” and even “endorsing” can hardly be found.

Brexit Bombshell

Express wrote on February 29:

“Most of England wants to see an end to EU supremacy over the UK according to a landmark survey gauging the mood of the nation ahead of the upcoming in/out referendum. The bombshell research will send shockwaves through Westminster and is a crushing blow to Mr Cameron’s pro-Brussels campaign, which has been beset by PR gaffes and accusations of fearmongering. Respected pollsters YouGov asked 80,000 Britons how they intend to vote in the referendum on Britain’s membership, to take place on June 23.

“Their shock results show that the further south in Britain you live the more likely it is that you are a Eurosceptic, with most of England now backing a Brexit. Many of the most densely populated parts of the UK are staunchly in favour of severing ties with Brussels…

“In contrast more pro-EU areas, including Scotland and Wales, have much smaller populations in comparison… There has also been a surge in anti-EU feeling in England’s eastern counties, Wales and the south-west…

“Brexit support is also strong in the more wealthy Tory counties of England like Suffolk, Somerset and Lincolnshire, showing that a concensus is now building behind the case to get Britain out of the EU. On the other hand, areas most supportive of the EU were found in metropolitan areas, Scotland and university cities… The most pro-EU area of Britain was Ceredigion in Wales while Scotland was by far the most pro-EU country in the UK.”

Switzerland To Withdraw Application for EU Membership

The Daily Mail wrote on March 2:

“Switzerland’s parliament has voted to withdraw its long-standing application for membership of the EU – amid a deepening row about migration. The country’s National Council has backed a symbolic motion to retract the country’s 24-year-old bid to join what was then the European Economic Community (EEC).

“Lukas Reimann from the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) argued it was ‘high time’ to make the move, as the country is battling with the European Commission about restricting free movement. He secured the support of 126 out of 200 deputies in the lower house in the vote on Tuesday, and the decision will be reviewed by the senate in the coming months.

“Mr Reimann said Switzerland should no longer be treated as a [country] which wanted to join the EU. Switzerland has never been a member of EU but has enjoyed free trade with the bloc since the 1970s by accepting most of its laws. It accepts free movement of people and is also a member of the Schengen borderless travel zone… it has a web of some 120 agreements with the EU, but its access to the single market does not include financial services hence many Swiss banks are based in London to access the single market…

“Unlike Switzerland, Norway and Iceland are members of the European Economic Area, with full access to the single market. Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg yesterday indicated she was perfectly happy to be outside the EU after a holding a meeting with Commission president Jean Claude Juncker in Brussels…”

The Iranian Vote—Changes Ahead?

Deutsche Welle reported on February 29:

“The government said on Monday that officials had finished counting the votes… Rouhani and his close ally former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani won 15 out of 16 seats in Tehran for the Assembly of Experts…

“Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati was the only conservative hard-liner to make it to the council from Tehran. The cleric is also the chairman of the Guardian Council, which disqualified several reformist leaders from contesting Friday’s polls. Jannati is considered one of the strongest critics of Rouhani’s reform program.

“Rafsanjani was expected to take over as head of the 88-member body, which chooses the country’s supreme leader. The post is currently held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The reformists also won all 30 seats representing Tehran in the 290-member parliament.

“Moderates have also gained seats and could team up with Rouhani’s supporters to outnumber conservatives opposed to Iran’s nuclear concessions. Signed last year, that agreement helped end crippling sanctions against Iran and open its markets to foreign businesses. Observers said the former president and Rouhani were likely to reduce the influence of conservatives in the council and in Iran’s politics in general.

“Iran’s official broadcaster reported that the results heralded ‘the end of the presence of a powerful majority in the parliament that overshadowed [the] decision-making apparatus in the country over the past decade.’”

This rather “optimistic” report of wishful thinking is off-set by the following cautionary and more “realistic” article.

The Times of Israel wrote on February 29:

“The unequivocal victory of Iran’s ‘moderate’ camp in Friday’s elections to the Majlis [parliament] and the Assembly of Experts is a resounding victory for two people: President Hassan Rouhani, who, pundits have already noted, faced in these elections a key test of his public support, and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

“Rafsanjani, 81, is the phoenix of Iranian politics, returning time and again from the political wilderness as one of the strongest and most cunning in that world. Despite countless attempts by the conservative establishment of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to isolate him and distance him from the centers of power, Rafsanjani has schooled Khamenei and his supporters in political maneuvering. If he were a Western statesman, an entire season of ‘House of Cards’ would surely have been devoted to him…

“In Friday’s elections, Rafsanjani secured a majority in the Assembly of Experts, which will select Khamenei’s successor as supreme leader…

“Beyond the personal and petty political rivalries, however, the election results are clearly an expression of support by the Iranian public for last year’s nuclear deal and the promise of a new openness to the West… the Iranian public yearns for more of that ‘Western influence’ against which conservatives have so ominously warned… the primary driver of this new desire for openness is the economy…

“Two caveats should be made here: First, Rafsanjani, Rouhani and their allies in the ‘moderate’ camp are devotees of Iran’s revolutionary regime. They do not want a coup or a revolution, but rather the preservation of the Iranian system. Both were involved in past campaigns against ‘enemies of the regime.’

“Second, with all due respect to Iranian politics and ‘democracy,’ the conservative establishment is not defeated. Far from it. They, too, have shown that they have phoenix-like powers. The conservative ayatollahs and Khamenei have no intention of raising a white flag or quietly fading into the night. They and their allies in the Revolutionary Guards will continue to influence Iran’s foreign policy, its Middle East wars and its deployment of terror groups in various countries.

“And Friday’s triumphant ‘moderates’ will be there to help the Guards obtain ever larger funding — made possible by the very openness to the West that so troubles them. The real battle is just beginning. The conservative establishment won’t abandon the field so quickly. This is still revolutionary Iran, the same one that operates so many terror cells across the globe.”

Iraq’s Looming Catastrophe

Express wrote on February 29:

“America has warned of an ‘unprecedented catastrophe’ which could see millions killed if a crumbling dam near an Islamic State stronghold collapses. The resulting ‘tsunami-like wave’ would crush nearly a third of Iraq, flatten major cities and wipe out hundreds of thousands of those living under ISIS control. Health officials have been unable to evacuate many of those in immediate threat as they reside under the control of the evil caliphate, also known as Daesh.

“The US embassy in Baghdad said long-running disrepair meant ‘approximately 500,000 to 1.47 million people living along the Tigris’ would probably not survive the impact of the projected flood wave unless they evacuated. A breach in the country’s biggest dam would unleash an ‘inland tidal wave’ which could reach tens of feet in height and knock out Iraq’s entire power grid. Parts of the ISIS stronghold Mosul could be under 45 feet of water within hours of a dam breach. The flood water would even reach Baghdad within three days and bring chaos to the Iraqi capital with ‘increased health hazards, limited to no mobility, and losses of homes, buildings, and services’…

“The 3.2-kilometer-long Mosul Dam holds back as much as 12.5 million cubic meters of water… A report dating back to 2006 even described the structure ‘the most dangerous dam in the world’. Repair works at the dam, built in 1984, have been neglected amid ongoing instability in the region. ISIS militants seized the dam in August 2014 but US airstrikes helped Kurdish and Iraqi forces take back control of it the same month. However, Mosul still remains in the hands of the militant terror group…

“Iraq’s own prime minister has tried to play down the risk of a breach at the country’s largest dam, calling the possibility ‘unlikely’ and insisting ‘the situation is under control’… But the Iraqi government has issued their own ‘instruction manual’ informing citizens about the likelihood of the dam collapsing and advising them what to do in the event that it did. An advisor to the office of PM revealed a collapse of the Mosul Dam would be ‘a thousand times worse’ than the impact of Hurricane Katrina… ‘there is a nightmare scenario that Daesh could itself strike the dam as they withdraw from Mosul.’”

Germany Declares Passports Invalid

Deutsche Welle reported on February 27:

“The Interior Ministry has confirmed travel documents issued from territory controlled by ‘Islamic State’ are no longer valid forms of ID. Nearly three quarters of migrants arriving to Germany in 2015 had no documents.  The measure went into effect in December as concern mounted that ‘IS’ had taken over public administrative functions and obtained vast quantities of blank documents.

“The rule impacts both Iraqis and Syrians who possess travel documents issued after January 1, 2015 in territory controlled by ‘IS’ in Syria in Iraq, the Interior Ministry said… Europe has been on high-alert for jihadists disguised as refugees using false documents following last November’s Paris terror attacks, in which Syrian passports were found on the bodies of two men. The black market for Syrian passports remains rife…

“Passport holders from ‘IS’ controlled areas will still be able to apply for asylum in Germany, but similar to other refugees must prove their identity and country of citizenship.”

Germany Ignorant of Whereabouts of 130,000 Migrants

AFP wrote February 26:

“German authorities do not know the whereabouts of 130,000 asylum seekers, the government said in a parliamentary document seen by AFP on Friday. Out of some 1.1 million asylum seekers registered in 2015, ‘about 13 percent did not turn up at the reception centres to which they had been directed,’ the government said in a written reply to a question from a lawmaker of the Left Party…

“A spokesman for the interior ministry said a package of new measures approved by parliament on Thursday is expected to help address the problem. These include plans for an identity document to be issued upon the arrival of a migrant… [They also include]  restricting family reunions for some migrants…”

Der Spiegel Online reported on February 29, that according to new polls from January, Angela Merkel gained some support. Her approval rate stands now at 54 percent. Most popular politician is Frank-Walter Steinmeier with a 70 % approval rate, followed by Wolfgang Schaueble with 66 %. However, these figures don’t mean much. When the migrant crisis continues and intensifies, as it surely will, Merkel’s approval rate will again decrease dramatically—and quickly.

In addition, and quite contradictorily, 59 percent of Germans disagree with Merkel regarding her migrant policy, and only 32 percent think that a solution can be reached in the foreseeable future. These 32 percent must be living on a different planet.

The Great Wall of Europe… It Will Get Much Worse

Express wrote on February 29:

“Finland has warned it expects the number of asylum applications to surge in 2016. It comes after Hungary prime minister Viktor Orban described the European Union’s response to the crisis as ‘absurd’ saying it was making no effort to thwart the influx… And Greek leaders warned the block’s policy to the problem was creating a ‘graveyard of souls’ in the south European country. It has taken in thousands more refugees fleeing Middle East warzones…

“Hungary’s Orban announced plans to build an enormous wall sealing his country off from southern Europe.

“Violence erupted across the Calais Jungle camp today as French authorities continued to demolish the camp to reduce its population from some 6,000 to 1,000 migrants. Riot police used tear gas to break up the riots as fires burned across the camp.”

Express wrote on March 2:

“Europe is facing a mass migration time bomb with a visa-free travel deal for Turkish citizens set to unleash an ‘uncountable influx’ on the continent, a top German politician has warned. Johannes Singhammer, vice-president of the Bundestag said there are ‘serious considerations’ about the prospective visa-free regime, because it would open ‘a gateway for further immigration and a flow of refugees to Germany.’

“He said that German consulates in Turkey are already issuing a staggering 200,000 visas a year for free travel in the Schengen zone and that number is now set to explode when the agreement comes into force in October…

“Mr Singhammer’s warning comes days after Mr Erdogan threatened to put millions of refugees on buses and planes to western Europe unless EU leaders handed over more money to host migrants arriving from Syria…

“Hungary’s no-nonsense president Viktor Orban has also slammed the deal, saying: ‘Brussels is making promises to the Turks that we can’t keep – or don’t want to keep. The plan to take in hundreds of thousands of refugees from Turkey and distribute them across Europe is an illusion.’”

Humanitarian Crisis in Greece

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 2:

“Thousands of migrants, many fleeing war in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, have been stranded in Idomeni by Macedonia’s decision to allow only a handful of asylum seekers with identification papers from Syria and Iraq [after several European nations decided to block passage to refugees].

“Wednesday marked the first time in two days that refugees were allowed to cross the frontier following an incident in which Macedonian police fired tear gas at protesting migrants attempting to force their way through the border fence…

“UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Flemming said on Wednesday that the decision taken by Macedonia and other European countries to limit the migration flow has resulted in some 25,000 people stranded in Greece… around 1,800 people reach Greece daily from Turkey by undertaking a perilous journey across the Aegean Sea.”

The EUObserver added on March 1:

“Austrian chancellor Werner Faymann on Tuesday (1 March) defended his controversial decision to tighten border controls, telling EU Council president Donald Tusk that ‘Austria is not a waiting room for Germany.’”

Passenger Flies from London to Germany with False Passport

The website of mashable.com wrote on February 29:

“We have all been there, rushing to the airport, trying to not forget anything – especially our passports because we would not be allowed to board the plane, right? For one man, this was not the case. Without realising he had picked up his girlfriend’s passport, Josh Reed managed to travel all the way from London’s Stansted to Dortmund, Germany, because no one at the airport had stopped him.

“… it was only after he made it through security and landed in Germany with his friends that he realised that his passport did not belong to him — it belonged to his 7 months pregnant girlfriend, Sophie Watkins. ‘We have different surnames and we couldn’t look more different,’ Reed said… ‘It makes you wonder how easy it would be for people that look alike to get through on fake passports.’”

Merkel: “Germany Should Play a Bigger Role in World Affairs”

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 2:

“The country should not just spread its influence via, exports, the chancellor argued. ‘Rather, we will have to take on more responsibility in an open world for what happens outside our European borders,’ she said from a CDU rally in the town of Wittlich in Rhineland-Palatinate, one of three states about to hold parliamentary ballots [next week]…

“One of her most outspoken critics has been Horst Seehofer, leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party the CSU. Speaking at a separate rally in Halle in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, which will also have elections next week, Seehofer said that ‘if the international measures do not come in time or are not effective enough, we will not be able to avoid national measures,’ a clear dig at the chancellor’s policies.

“Instead of bowing to the tension, Merkel has continued to favor a solution at the European level, even as her center-right party loses ground to the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in some areas, including Saxony-Anhalt. A defeat for the CDU at the regional polls could force Merkel to reverse her course if she hopes to keep her party in the majority in the 2017 general election.”

Pope Francis Again in Hot Water

Newsmax wrote on February 27:

“Italian pro-life leaders are speaking out against Pope Francis’ praise of former Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino as one of the nation’s ‘forgotten greats,’ complaining that she is best known in the nation for her stance on legalizing abortion. ‘How can the pope praise a woman that is best known in Italy for practicing illegal abortion and promoting abortion?’ said Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro, who was until last year the head of the Rome office of Human Life International…

“In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere Della Serra, the Pope acknowledged that his praise, in which he compared her to historical figures such as Konrad Adenauer, who was the first post-world War II chancellor of Germany, and the famed statesman Robert Schuman, could be considered controversial. However, she offered the best advice to Italy on Africa, said the pontiff, and commented that it is ‘people who think very differently from us… We have to look at people, at what they do.’

“Bonino, a leading member of the Radical Party and former European Commissioner, though, is well known for having an abortion at the age of 27 and then working with the Information Centre on Sterilization and Abortion, which was responsible for 10,000 abortions… She entered politics after being acquitted on charges of performing illegal abortions… and there are photos of her performing abortions using a homemade device being operated by a bicycle pump…”

More Attacks on Unvaccinated Students

CBS Denver wrote on February 25:

“A bill introduced in the state House would require the reporting of non-vaccinated students to the Colorado Department of Health and Environment. Currently those records are kept with the school… A hearing at the state Capitol on Thursday was packed with parents who oppose the bill…

“The proposal opened an emotional debate about Colorado’s low vaccination rates. Colorado is one of 20 states that allow parents to claim any kind of personal opposition to required immunizations, and vaccine rates for some diseases are among the nation’s lowest… Some of those who are opposed to vaccinations are fearful of the state obtaining the names of those who have opted out for fear it’s a step towards tracking them down… After Thursday’s marathon hearing the bill passed committee 7-6.”

In spite of right concerns by parents, the drug lobby prevailed again in Colorado. There should be no doubt that those records WOULD be used to track down and put pressure on parents of unvaccinated children.

“While Obama Fiddles…”

On February 25, the Washington Post published the following article by Charles Krauthammer:

“1. In the South China Sea… China has just installed antiaircraft batteries and stationed fighter jets. This after China landed planes on an artificial island it created on another disputed island chain (the Spratlys, claimed by the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam). These facilities now function as forward bases for Beijing to challenge seven decades of American naval dominance of the Pacific Rim…

“2. Syria. Russian intervention has turned the tide of war. Having rescued the Bashar al-Assad regime from collapse, relentless Russian bombing is destroying the rebel stronghold of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, creating a massive new wave of refugees and demonstrating to the entire Middle East what a Great Power can achieve when it acts seriously…

“3. Ukraine. Having swallowed Crimea so thoroughly that no one even talks about it anymore, Russia continues to trample with impunity on the Minsk cease-fire agreements…

“4. Iran. Last Thursday, Iran received its first shipment of S-300 antiaircraft batteries from Russia, a major advance in developing immunity to any attack on its nuclear facilities. And it is negotiating an $8 billion arms deal with Russia that includes sophisticated combat aircraft…

“Amid global disarray and American decline, Obama sticks to his cherished concerns: Cuba, Guantanamo (about which he gave a rare televised address this week) and, of course, climate change…”

Legal Changes Proposed by Donald Trump

Frontburner.dmagazine.com reported on February 26:

“Speaking at a rally in Fort Worth today, presidential candidate Donald Trump said he hopes to remove the federal restriction against tax-exempt organizations endorsing politicians, in order to create ‘the strongest Christian lobby.’… The current law, which was passed during the Lyndon B. Johnson administration and strengthened in 1987, prohibits political campaign activity by charities and churches… ‘That’s one of the first things I want to do,’ Trump said… ‘ You can hold me to it…’

“Trump then launched into a defense of the word ‘Christmas’…  ‘We’re going to say “Merry Christmas” now,’ Trump said. ‘We’re going to start going into department stores, and you’re going to see big beautiful signs that say “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays.”’”

Business Insider wrote on February 26:

“Donald Trump threatened on Friday to change America’s libel laws to make it easier to sue media companies. Trump told the press that if he becomes president, then he would rewrite US libel laws so people can ‘sue you like you’d never get sued before.’…

“The billionaire businessman has issued a number of legal threats to reporters and others throughout the years, though in the US it is difficult for public figures to sue the media for libel unless they can prove malice… ‘I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. … So that when The New York Times writes a hit piece, which is a total disgrace — or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons — write a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected…”

97 Percent Certainty that Trump Will Be the Next President?

Sbstatesman.com wrote on February 23, 2016:

“A professor of political science at Stony Brook University has forecasted that Donald Trump has a minimum 97 percent chance of winning the general election as the Republican nominee… Donald Trump has a 97 percent chance of defeating Hillary Clinton and a 99 percent chance of defeating Bernie Sanders in the general election, according to [Professor] Norpoth’s formula…

“Norpoth’s primary model works for every presidential election since 1912, with the notable exception of the 1960 election. These results give the model an accuracy of 96.1 percent… ‘You think “This is crazy. How can anything come up with something like that?”’, Norpoth said. ‘But that’s exactly the kind of equation I used to predict Bill Clinton winning in ’96, that I used to predict that George Bush would win in 2004, and, as you remember four years ago, that Obama would win in 2012.’”

This forecast was even given before “Super Tuesday,” when Trump was victorious in seven states (see articles below).

Trump Unlike Hitler

The Local wrote on February 24:

“Many liberal commentators have been wringing their hands about US Presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s alleged similarity to Hitler…

“Despite actually coming from Austria, Hitler was obsessed with the superiority of the German people and could barely finish a sentence without blurting out a reference to the Fatherland. In one of the most well-known ironies of history the squat, dark-haired dictator proclaimed that only tall blond, blue-eyed people were true ‘Aryans.’

“Donald Trump on the other hand is a tall, blond and has blue eyes, but is so ashamed of his links to Germany he tried to cover up his family heritage for years. After originally trying to pass himself off as a Swede, the billionaire has more recently admitted that his grandfather did indeed come from Kallstadt in Rhineland-Palatinate…

“Trump’s signature policy is, of course, the construction of a giant wall along the southern border of the USA to keep people from entering illegally… Hitler, of course, was all for Germany having open borders – just as long as it was German soldiers and settlers streaming out rather than other people coming in. The dictator’s fondest dream was to acquire Lebensraum – living space – in eastern Europe and Russia where the German race could expand, at the cost of those already living there…

“[Hitler’s] failure to invade the United Kingdom may have been one of the turning points that ultimately cost Hitler the war. After his troops conquered France in the early summer of 1940, the Luftwaffe (German air force) fought a bitter battle with the Royal Air Force (RAF) for control of the skies that would become known as the Battle of Britain. But try as the German pilots might, they never won control of the air, which would have allowed the Nazis to establish a bridgehead for invasion on the southern British coast.

“Trump has already colonized his own little corner of Britain, building the Trump International Golf Links on the east coast of Scotland – which he has tried, unsuccessfully, to defend against the government’s plans to build an offshore wind farm nearby…

“Hitler’s devastating war led to the destruction of the largest medieval city centre in Europe Germany. The RAF and US Air Force bombed Frankfurt over six years between 1939-45, leaving most of the city little more than rubble.

“Quite the opposite has been true of Trump, who planned to build the tallest residential building in the world in the German finance capital on the Main at the start of the millennium. The tycoon eventually backed away from the project, possibly due to annoyance with Germany’s planning regulations.”

“Donald Trump Elicits Shock in European Media”

The New York Times wrote on February 28:

“… the European media, like its American counterpart, is adjusting to the prospect of a seemingly unstoppable Trump juggernaut. The reaction is a mix of befuddlement, outrage and panic…

“In Germany… the front page of a recent issue of Der Spiegel, the influential German magazine, shows Mr. Trump with the American flag behind him engulfed in flames. ‘Madness: America’s agitator,’ the headline says…

“Mr. Trump seemed too much even for Bild. It published a commentary recently by Franz Josef Wagner, a former editor of the newspaper, who wrote: ‘The ugly side of America is not dead, nor the ugly side of Germany.’ He compared Trump to a German politician, Frauke Petry of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party, who has called for the police to shoot at people crossing the border illegally. ‘What kind of world will we live in,’ he asked, ‘if these people come to power?’”

The New York Times is waking up to a phenomenon in Europe, which we already discussed sometime back. Please view our StandingWatch program from February 10, titled “Trump Shocks Europe.” 

How Germany Sees It

The Local wrote on March 2:

“German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Tuesday took a thinly veiled shot at Donald Trump, decrying the ‘politics of fear’ in the US presidential campaign. ‘Building walls is a very bad idea – no matter who pays for them,’ Steinmeier told university students during a visit to Washington… Steinmeier warned that the rise of populist parties and politicians in Europe and the United States could undermine ‘effective foreign policy in our Western democracies.’

“‘In Germany and in Europe, something is gaining momentum in our domestic politics – and to be honest, I am also seeing it here in the United States during the primary campaigns: It’s the politics of fear,’ he said. ‘Let’s guard against those politics of fear – they are dangerous for Europe and the US. They are bad for the world and, in the end, they will also be bad for our transatlantic relations.’”

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 3:

“There’s something of a Trump-induced paralysis hanging over the German political establishment… For months now, German politicians have been looking across the Atlantic with a mixture of fascination and horror…

“It brings to mind how the Germans felt about George W. Bush – but only a little. Bush was anything but popular in Germany, but nonetheless, Angela Merkel stood by his side in the days before she became chancellor and defended the US invasion of Iraq – something she now concedes was a mistake. But Trump? God help us…

“74 percent of Germans would vote for Hillary Clinton, and only 8 percent would support Donald Trump. Trump has admitted that he admires Russian President Vladimir Putin… The idea of Russia and the United States cozying up to one another with Germany caught in the middle is enough to make anyone afraid.

“But the sense from Berlin is that politicians have so many other things to worry about at the moment: The refugee crisis, the collapse of Europe, the war in Syria, the conflict in Ukraine and Russian intervention. Generally speaking, Germans have lost interest in US politics. Barack Obama was once celebrated here like a hero. What a historic moment – the first black president! But he didn’t live up to Germans’ expectations of him, and gradually, the US didn’t seem so important anymore. And doesn’t all this with Trump seem surreal, like something dreamed up in Hollywood? And if it should become real, what then? But no, that’s not something anyone really wants to consider just yet.”

Der Spiegel Online wrote on March 2 that it appears inevitable that Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee and that Hillary Clinton has to “save America and the entire world from this man.”

On the other hand, Der Stern Online wrote on March 2: “Trump is right. For many Americans, the USA is no longer a great country. That is why he won in seven of eleven states on Super Tuesday [Ted Cruz won in three states, and Marco Rubio in one.]. It is not only dumb people and Hillbillies who vote for him. He receives votes from Latinos, blacks, blue color workers and  university graduates. Even supporters of Democrats watch him approvingly… He gives true hope to millions of people. It is time to take them and him seriously.“

What Your Phone Knows About You

Bloomberg wrote on February 29:

“Your phone knows more about you than you think. ‘You can extract enough information on a typical person’s phone that you can construct a virtual clone of that individual,’ said Elad Yoran, executive chairman of Koolspan Inc., a communications security company… ‘There’s probably more information about you on your phone than there is in your house,’ Apple chief executive Tim Cook told ABC News last week. ‘Our smartphones are loaded with our intimate conversations, our financial data, our health records. They’re also loaded with the location of our kids in many cases.’

“The world’s 7.3 billion people now have an estimated 3.4 billion smartphones. That’s expected to climb to 6.4 billion by 2021… The phones are powerful, processing more information faster than the computers NASA used to put humans on the moon… There’s a record of calls made and received, text messages, photos, contact lists, calendar entries, Internet browsing history and notes, as well as access to e-mail accounts, banking institutions and websites like Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and Netflix…

“Many people instruct their phones to remember passwords for these apps so they can be quickly opened — which means they are available to anyone who gets into the phone. That reveals your taste in films, shopping habits and relationships… Navigation programs can serve as a record of places visited. If you use a friend finder app, the phone will know where your friends or family members are or have been.

“Moreover, smartphones quietly collect data about a user and share it with others…  Most users don’t realize the extent to which their phone is connected to the outside world because accounts stay automatically logged in…”

Federal Judge Sides With Apple Against FBI

The Guardian wrote on February 29:

“A federal judge on Monday rejected an FBI request to order Apple to open the iPhone of a drug dealer in a major setback to the US government’s increasingly heated efforts to force the company to help unlock an iPhone used by a San Bernardino terrorist.

“The ruling late on Monday by magistrate judge James Orenstein rejected the US Justice Department’s attempt to gain access to the iPhone of accused crystal meth dealer Jun Feng, whose case is ongoing, though Feng has pleaded guilty. He will be sentenced in April.

“… The New York magistrate echoed at least one of the key arguments Apple is making in its other, higher-profile fight with the government: the [ancient] All Writs Act (AWA) can’t be used to order a technology company to manipulate its products, he said. ‘The implications of the government’s position are so far-reaching – both in terms of what it would allow today and what it implies about Congressional intent in 1789 – as to produce impermissibly absurd results,’ said the judge.”

Judge Orenstein is absolutely correct. In addition, this case also shows that the FBI’s contention is patently untrue that it would only compel Apple to unlock the iPhone in the San Bernardino case.  Please view our StandingWatch program, “Why Would Apple Resist the FBI?”  

Catholic Church vs. Trump

The Washington Post wrote on February 19:

“First was the British prime minister, who called Donald Trump ‘divisive, stupid and wrong.’ Then came Britain’s Parliament, which denounced him with colorful language. The French prime minister, the Turkish president and a Saudi prince also weighed in: The Republican presidential front-runner, they agreed, was a demagogue disgracing the United States.

“On Thursday, Pope Francis added the strongest voice yet to a growing chorus of world leaders taking a stand against the celebrity candidate — condemning Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda and suggesting he was not a Christian because of it… Trump, a Presbyterian, strongly rebuked Francis for his comments…

“For generations, the role of the papacy has been shaded by politics — and Francis’s papacy especially, with his efforts on global climate change and general outspokenness. But it was striking for him to comment on U.S. electoral politics during a campaign…”

Does the Pope Speak With Authority on Christian Teachings?

In a related article, The Washington Post published this article by James Martin, a Jesuit priest:

“Like any good Jesuit, who knows that this rule is ingrained in the thinking of Saint Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuit founder, the pope says that he is giving Trump the ‘benefit of the doubt.’… Pope Francis is correct. Any person who consistently speaks of excluding people, who trumpets his desire to (literally) build more walls between communities, and who manifests a desire to increase division, is not walking the Christian way… one of the pope’s traditional titles is ‘Pontifex Maximus,’ the Great Bridge Builder.

“… the billionaire businessman has directed hatred against a great many people — migrants of course, but also Mexicans, women, his fellow presidential candidates and on and on. This, too, is not of God. The kind of hatred that issues from Trump’s mouth —from anyone’s mouth — is not motivated by God. Hatred of this sort is motivated by evil; so is contempt for the poor…

“The pope speaks with authority. If anyone has the right to pronounce on such matters, it is Pope Francis. Learned, prayerful and humble, Francis is someone whom the world has rightly come to trust. As much as we would listen to the Dalai Lama when it comes to Buddhist practice, we would listen to Pope Francis when it comes to Christian teachings…  Trump has responded to Pope Francis with a hateful comment about the Islamic State bombing the Vatican…”

This is a rather odd article by a Jesuit priest, speaking about a Jesuit pope. Since when does the pope speak with authority on Christian teachings? Virtually all non-Catholics would strongly disagree with this assumption, and quite a few Catholics disagree with this premise as well.

Religious Leaders Rush To Trump’s Defense After Pope Francis’ Comments

The Huffington Post wrote on February 19:

“Religious leaders voiced support for Donald Trump after Pope Francis implied that the Republican presidential candidate is ‘not a Christian.’

“Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr., who is the son of the late televangelist Jerry Falwell, told CNN that ‘the pope is mistaken … I do believe Trump is a Christian.’ He added that ‘JFK would be rolling over in his grave right now.’ Falwell has endorsed Trump for president…

“Franklin Graham, the son of Evangelist minister Billy Graham, also defended Trump. ‘My advice to the pontiff: Reach out and build a bridge to Donald Trump,’ he said on Facebook. ‘Who knows where he may be this time next year!’

“But it’s not just evangelists who have Trump’s back. Catholic League President Bill Donohue defended the former reality TV star and accused the media of twisting Pope Francis’ words. ‘The pope was set up by the reporter,’ he said. ‘He’s been lied to about what Trump has said.’”

“God Told Israel to Build a Wall”

Newsmax wrote on February 19:

“Pope Francis should know that walls sometimes are commanded by God, former GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Thursday in response to the Pope saying Christians don’t build walls… ‘It’s just absolutely stunning,’ Huckabee said. I don’t remember in my lifetime that a Pope has ever injected himself into the specifics of an American presidential election and specifically calling out of a candidate.’… Huckabee said that all the Republican candidates have called for a secure border, so Francis should not have singled out Trump.

‘‘I have been to the Vatican,’ he added. ‘There is a big wall that surrounds the Vatican. I’m wondering, when the Pope gets back home, is he going to it take that down and say we don’t build walls anymore?’ Further, the Old Testament figure Nehemiah built a protective wall around Jerusalem at God’s command, said Huckabee, a former Baptist minister. ‘I don’t know what the Pope thinks a country should do if it doesn’t protect its borders and protect its people,’ he said. ‘A country without a border is not even a country anymore.’”

“Huge” Win of Trump Against the Pope, as Vatican Backs Down

The Daily Mail wrote on February 19:

“The Vatican today executed a speedy climb-down in its feud with Donald Trump – handing the Republican White House hopeful a major political victory. Pope Francis’s suggestion that Trump was ‘not Christian’ because of his views on immigration was not a personal attack on the candidate, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said on Friday…

“[The Pope’s comments] promoted an immediate and furious denunciation from Trump, as well as a massive backlash on social media, where the Pope was mocked for living in the Vatican, itself a walled city-state…

“By day’s end the conflict drew Trump’s Republican rivals out of the shadows, with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio – the presidential race’s two Roman Catholics – backing The Donald over The Pontiff…

“Rubio… defended the Republican Party’s line – essentially, Trump’s position – on immigration… Noting that the U.S. takes in a million immigrants a year, he declared that ‘Mexico doesn’t do that. No other country in the world does that… We’re a sovereign country. We have a right to control who comes in, when they come in and how they come in… Vatican City controls who comes in, when they come and how they come in, as a nation-state, or a city-state. And as a result, the United States has a right to do that as well.’

“Bush also rushed to Trump’s defense and insisted that no one should determine the validity of another person’s faith in God…”

The Hill added on February 19:

“Donald Trump is praising Pope Francis a day after he blasted the pontiff for seemingly questioning his faith and criticizing his proposal to build a wall on the nation’s southern border.  ‘I think he’s a terrific person, frankly,’ Trump said of Francis during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren… The real estate mogul suggested afterward that he appreciated the Vatican walking back the remarks, telling Fox News, ‘The fact that he said that, I’m very honored by it.’”

The Vatican’s Stone Wall

In a related article, the Daily Mail explained the history, purpose and function of the Vatican’s wall:

“Vatican City is the smallest independent state in the world. An enormous stone wall acts as a boundary between the micro-nation and the rest of Italy. Nowadays, it serves as a way for the Swiss Guard to control the stream of tourists coming in and out of the Pope’s home. But, just over 1,200 years ago, it was an integral form of protection for the Pope, who was a targeted figure after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire .

“The fortification was first built after a raid by Muslim pirates in 846. Arab raiders sacked Rome in a bid to find treasures. Watch towers were put in place to watch for would-be intruders. It also helped to protect Pope Gregory VII around 200 years later when the Holy Roman Emperor besieged Rome.

“In the 1640s, Pope Paul III expanded the fortifications, and additional defenses. In 1870, the Pope’s residency in the Vatican was left in flux when Rome was annexed by the Piedmont-led forces which had united the rest of Italy. They had created the Kingdom of Italy, a change opposed by Pope Pius XIII as it undermined his autonomy in some areas.

“Between 1861 and 1929 the status of the Pope was referred to as the ‘Roman Question’ and the walls served as a way of keeping him isolated from the rest of Italy. Within the walls, Italian politicians did not challenge the Pope’s autonomy. But, in other parts of the country, church items were confiscated.

“In 1871, the Palazzo Quirinale, the Papal palace since 1583, was confiscated by the king of Italy and became the royal palace. Thereafter, Popes resided undisturbed within the Vatican walls. Certain papal prerogatives were recognized by the Law of Guarantees, including the right to send and receive ambassadors. But the Popes did not recognise the Italian king’s right to rule in Rome, and they refused to leave the Vatican compound until the dispute was resolved in 1929. Ever since the autonomy of the Vatican within the walls has not been challenged by the Italian government.”

Pope Should Stay Out of Politics…

Newsmax wrote on February 18:

“Pope Francis should not become involved in American politics because ‘he’s probably not up to speed on what we’re arguing about,’ conservative columnist George Will [said] on Thursday. ‘This Pope has shown a proclivity, to put it politely, for speaking about things about which he has no particular expertise: climate change, income redistribution, all the rest… He has a long sort of Latin American, left-wing political agenda — and I think it influenced this.’”

Will also criticized Trump for his initial answer to the Pope, stating it did not help the cause.

More Controversial Comments by the Pope

The Associated Press wrote on February 18:

“Pope Francis has suggested women threatened with the Zika virus could use artificial contraception, saying ‘avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil’ in light of the global epidemic. The pope unequivocally rejected abortion…  But he drew a parallel to a decision by Pope Paul VI in the 1960s to approve giving nuns in Belgian Congo artificial contraception to prevent pregnancies because they were being systematically raped…

“Theologians and some Latin American bishops cautioned the pope was not giving a green light for Catholics to use artificial birth control, nor did his remarks amount to a change in church teaching…

“U.N. officials have called on Latin American countries to loosen their abortion laws to allow women to terminate pregnancies if they fear the fetus may be at risk for microcephaly, a rare birth defect that causes brain damage and may be linked to the virus. But Francis told reporters, ‘Taking one life to save another, that’s what the Mafia does. It’s a crime. It’s an absolute evil.’…”

Trump Did NOT Oppose the Iraq War?

Newsmax reported on February 18:

“Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said in 2002 that he supported the Iraq War — despite his insistence that he opposed the conflict during the George W. Bush administration. ‘Yeah, I guess so,’ Trump said in response to a question about whether he supported the war from radio host Howard Stern on Sept. 11, 2002. ‘I wish the first time it was done correctly.’

“When asked Thursday at a CNN town hall in South Carolina whether he made the statement, Trump responded that ‘I probably said that’… ‘By the time the war started, I was against it. Shortly thereafter, I was really against it.’”

However, note the next article.

Newmax reported on February 19:

“On the second day of the Iraq War in 2003, Donald Trump said that the effort begun by President George W. Bush appeared to be ‘a tremendous success from a military standpoint.’ Trump… told Neil Cavuto on Fox Business Channel that the conflict would help Wall Street… BuzzFeed obtained audio of the telephone interview, from March 21, 2003, through Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. Operation Iraqi Freedom began on March 20, 2003, ending that May 1. ‘Wall Street’s just gonna go up like a rocket, even beyond, and it’s gonna continue and, you know, we have a strong and powerful country and let’s hope it all works out,’ Trump said.

“He added that he believed that any international objections to the war would not endanger American’s economy. ‘I guess the French never liked us much, except when we’re bailing them out, you know, to be totally honest with you,’ he told Cavuto. ‘But certainly, we’re going to have to work on our public relations, because there’s no question that there are a lot of countries in the world right now that aren’t too fond of us — but I think that can be solved and probably pretty quickly.’

“The developer added that, ‘the main thing is to get the war over with and just make it a tremendously successful campaign — and it’ll be very interesting to see what kind of weapons they uncover.’”

Cruz Parrots Trump

The Huffington Post wrote on February 22:

“Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has taken a page from Donald Trump’s presidential campaign playbook, hardening his rhetoric against undocumented immigrants. Cruz told Fox News host Bill O’Reilly on Monday that yes, should he be elected president, his administration would deport all 12 million undocumented people estimated to be in the U.S. and wouldn’t allow them to return… Cruz said America would build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, triple the border force and establish biometric entry systems ‘so we will know the day someone overstays their visa.’

“The senator’s comments represent an escalation in rhetoric from a candidate who rejected the notion of a ‘deportation force’ of ‘jackboots’ just last month, and lambasted the idea after it was proposed by GOP front-runner Trump. Cruz in January said such a policy would reflect ‘a police state,’ adding, ‘That’s not how we enforce the law for any crime.’”

The Scam with GOP’s Superdelegates

Bustle wrote on February 20:

“The dominance of Trump’s campaign, as well as the refusal of many to believe that Trump might actually win, is leading to increased speculations that the GOP might be headed toward a contested convention. As Republican officials dust off convention rulebooks in preparation for the possibility, many others are curious: How would superdelegates affect a contested convention?

“The GOP has about 2,472 delegates, and 168 of them are ‘super’ (or unbound). In theory, they can vote for whoever they want, and would thus have a lot of power at a contested convention. However, the Republican National Committee changed its rules in 2016, and so this year, those 168 superdelegates won’t actually be super at all. Instead, they’ll be obligated to vote for the candidate that their state supported, either on a proportional or a winner-take-all basis.

“If the convention is contested, however, this will change. How exactly it will change is complicated…

“In normal circumstances, a candidate wins the majority of delegates during the primary and caucus stage, those delegates vote for that candidate at the convention, and the candidate becomes the nominee. But if no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the party’s total delegates by the time the national convention is held, nobody will win the majority of delegates at the actual convention vote, and as a result, the party will be left without a nominee…

“The delegates have to keep voting until more than 50 percent of them rally behind one candidate, and so multiple rounds of voting are held. In between these rounds (which are officially, and confusingly, called ‘ballots’), the candidates and their supporters will lobby individual delegates, attempting to convince them to change their votes. This keeps going until one candidate secures the support of more than half of the delegates…

“The bottom line is that if the GOP does indeed end up with a contested convention, the nomination would be decided by an elite group of superdelegates. It’ll be way, way messier than that.”

If that wasn’t bad enough, read the next article about the superdelegates within the Democratic Party.

The Scam with Democrats’ Superdelegates

The New York Times’ Editorial Board wrote on February 19:

“Superdelegates are party bigwigs – 712 Democratic leaders, legislators, governors and the like. They can vote for any candidate at the nominating convention, regardless of whether that candidate won the popular vote. These unpledged delegates make up 30 percent of the 2,382 delegates whose votes are needed to win the nomination, and could thus make all the difference.

“The status of Hillary and Bill Clinton as senior figures in the Democratic Party has allowed Mrs. Clinton to secure public endorsements from many more superdelegates than Mr. Sanders. Late last year, The Associated Press surveyed 80 percent of the Democratic superdelegates and found that 359 had endorsed Mrs. Clinton, versus eight for Mr. Sanders. The rest remained uncommitted.

“In the New Hampshire primary…, which Mrs. Clinton lost by 22 percentage points, Mr. Sanders won 15 of the state’s 24 pledged delegates, and Mrs. Clinton won nine. But because she has the support of six of the state’s eight unpledged superdelegates… she is virtually tied with Mr. Sanders in the New Hampshire delegate count…”

So while superdelegates play an important role within the GOP in case of a contested convention, superdelegates may play a decisive vote at the Democratic convention, even if the convention is not contested. One is tempted to ask: Why even vote, if the results may mean nothing?

Boycotting Apple?

Newsmax reported on February 19:

“Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called on Friday for a boycott of Apple products until the tech company agrees to help the U.S. government unlock the cellphone of one of the killers in the San Bernardino, California, attack… Trump made the off-the-cuff comment at a town hall-style event at a country club in Pawleys Island, (South Carolina)… He also called for the boycott on Twitter.

“The Republican front-runner in the 2016 White House race has been a frequent critic of Apple and called on the company to make more products in the United States…

“The filing [of a lawsuit by the US government against Apple] escalated a showdown between the Obama administration and Silicon Valley over security and privacy that ignited earlier this week.”

Please view our StandingWatch program, titled, “Why Would Apple Resist the FBI?” which shows why Donald Trump is wrong on this issue. Apple responded that they are in good company, given the many unsuccessful attempts of Trump to boycott companies and individuals in the past…

Apple vs. FBI: “FBI Screwed It Up”

Business Insider wrote on February 21:

“The FBI has shed more light on its involvement in what is shaping up to be the most controversial piece of evidence in the investigation of San Bernardino terror suspect Syed Rizwan Farook: his iCloud account password.

“Hours after Farook’s iPhone was recovered by law enforcement, the password to his iCloud account was reset. The reset was an attempt to gain access to his account. It also likely prevented the iPhone from doing an auto-backup, which could have yielded useful information about Farook’s activity leading up to the shooting that killed 14 people and wounded 22 others.

“That kicked off a round of finger-pointing by Apple executives, the FBI, and San Bernardino County officials over who reset the iCloud password… the FBI confirmed it was working with San Bernardino County officials when the password was reset. Apple executives said…  that if the FBI hadn’t changed the iCloud password, it wouldn’t need to create a backdoor to the iPhone.

“It sounds like the FBI screwed this whole process up…”

Many legal scholars agree that Apple has no choice but to resist the FBI. Please view our StandingWatch program, “Why Would Apple Resist the FBI?”

Apple Prepared to Go All the Way

The Telegraph wrote on February 24:

“Apple is ready to fight the FBI’s demand that it unlocks the phone of Rizwan Farook, one of the San Bernardino killers all the way to the Supreme Court, Tim Cook, the company’s chief executive, has said. Mr Cook said that complying with a court order to help the FBI break into an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters would… set a legal precedent that would offend many Americans…

“Apple’s chief executive officer also said there should have been more dialogue with the Obama administration before the US Justice Department’s decision to seek relief from a federal magistrate judge in California. ‘We found out about the filing from the press, and I don’t think that’s the way the railroad should be run, and I don’t think that something so important to this country should be handled in this way,’ Mr Cook said in an interview being aired on ‘ABC World News Tonight.’”

Fragile Syria Deal

The Washington Post wrote on February 22:

“The United States and Russia announced Monday that they have agreed to the terms of a partial cease-fire in Syria, a deal that will depend on their ability to cooperate amid deep mutual suspicion and test their willingness and ability to dictate terms to their allies on the ground.

“Under the agreement, Washington and Moscow are to establish a hotline between them to monitor compliance and resolve potential problems, a joint statement said. The two are also ‘prepared to work together to exchange pertinent information’ delineating territory currently held by various Syrian combatants and ensuring that neither country, nor any of their allies, bombs groups or areas covered by the accord.

“Opposition groups, and the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have until noon Friday to inform the United States or Russia that they agree to the terms, or risk coming under renewed attack. The agreement excludes the Islamic State, al-Qaeda’s affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, and any other ‘terrorist’ group that in the future may be designated by the United Nations.

“While the United States is depending on Russia to bring the Syrian government and Iran to heel, rebel backers including Turkey and Saudi Arabia are under pressure to rein in groups thought to be under their control.”

One has to ask: How could this “deal” possibly work?

Turkey Won’t Be Israel’s Friend

The Times of Israel wrote on February 19:

“There is little chance that Israel will be able to rehabilitate its ties with Turkey, Greece’s defense minister told Israeli journalists on Thursday.  ‘The fact [that] Turkey trades with Daesh [Islamic State], as Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon has described, funds Daesh, and allows its fighters to enter and leave Syria raises questions in both Israel and Greece,’ Panos Kammenos told Israel Radio in an interview while on a visit to Israel… ‘Turkey’s… stance toward Israel remains as hostile as in the past.’

“Kammenos noted that Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu last year said he longed to see the Palestinian flag flying over Jerusalem.”

The Bible shows that, ultimately, Turkey will become extremely hostile towards Israel.

“Russia Might Strike Anywhere in the World”

The Guardian wrote on February 19:

“Vladimir Putin’s new geopolitical ambitions have led the US to realise it made a strategic mistake turning away from Europe and making a pivot to Asia, the foreign affairs adviser to the Polish president has said.

“Krzysztof Szczerski urged the west to recognise that the Russian president was no longer simply seeking to restore his country’s dominance in former Soviet states such as Ukraine, but to adopt a more dominant military posture across the globe. He told the Guardian: ‘It is now a strategy of geopolitical confrontation, so the next strikes of Putin are not guaranteed to be in the post-Soviet sphere. It could be anywhere in the world. It is wrong to think that Putin has narrow territorial limits. Syria has shown that is not the case.’

“Szczerski said Putin’s Syrian intervention last year showed Russia had the capacity to move large amounts of equipment at speed across a great distance without their preparations being noticed…”

“Deal” Reached between Brussels and Britain

The Washington Post wrote on February 19:

“Round-the-clock negotiations between British Prime Minister David Cameron and his fellow European Union leaders yielded a deal late Friday night that they hope will keep Britain from becoming the first country to leave the 28-member bloc… A British exit — popularly known as ‘Brexit’ — is strongly opposed by all E.U. leaders, Cameron included…  Cameron said after the deal was announced that the agreed package of E.U. reforms was ‘enough’ for him to recommend that Britain remain in the union… [The British referendum has been subsequently set for June 23, 2016.]

“Cameron received concessions that amounted to far less than the fundamental renegotiation of Britain’s relationship with the E.U. that he had promised. But he was expected to declare victory nonetheless… But already on Friday, British Euroskeptics were lining up to proclaim the long and protracted talks as Exhibit A in their portrayal of the E.U. as a hopelessly dysfunctional institution that is beyond hope for serious reform…”

Deutsche Welle wrote on February 19:

“Cameron noted that migrants would no longer be able to come to Britain and start collecting social benefits before they have even had time to look for work. Indeed, he said they won’t have access to it for four years. Paradoxically, he also voiced support for the free movement of people and labor.”

The Telegraph wrote on February 20:

“David Cameron finally has his deal with the Europe – a deal that, it is claimed, gives Britain a ‘special status’ within the EU… It is astonishing that such humble proposals caused that much difficulty… Is it really a step too far to protect the interests of countries outside the eurozone? And what is so shocking about the proposition that British taxpayers should not [have] to pay such generous child welfare payments to children living overseas?… It will probably astonish British voters that all of this proved so problematic, particularly when Europeans have such terrible problems as the refugee crisis to chew over…

“But, then again, this should not surprise us. The EU leadership has decided that the future lies with greater integration, so even the smallest reform will be regarded as a challenge to this philosophy…”

“Call That a Deal, Dave?”

The Daily Mail wrote on February 19:

“All that lost sleep, and for what?… you have only to read David Cameron’s defiant quotes… to see the chasm between the ‘fundamental changes’ he promised and the pathetic ‘compromise on a compromise’ he has struggled to clinch this week.

“Gone are his commitments to ‘full-on treaty change’, war on bureaucracy, sovereignty for Westminster, ‘a complete opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights’, the return of border controls, limits on the jurisdiction of the European Court and more besides.

“In their place are measures so complex and trifling that they promise only more work for the bureaucrats, who will absurdly have to calculate 27 different rates of child benefit for migrant workers, according to the cost of living in their countries of origin.

“As for his vaunted ‘red card’, which would allow blocks of 15 nations to veto Brussels diktats, you have only to witness this week’s infighting to see the difficulty of getting three nations to agree, let alone 15…

“No, from the moment Mr Cameron made clear that he was determined to remain in the EU, come what may, any fleeting hopes of an agreement that might have made a real difference flew out of the window… As they bickered over the minutiae of child benefit at their banquets, a tide of migration unseen since 1945 was sweeping over the continent they purport to control, with 6,000 arriving on the Greek island of Lesbos in only three days. And that’s in the depths of winter, months before the peak season. Among them will be unknown numbers of jihadis, posing as war refugees to join the 5,000 IS-trained terrorists estimated by the EU’s police chief to be at large in Europe.

“In the fantasy world of the summit, leaders may mouth pious platitudes about the ‘non-negotiable’ principle of free movement. Yet in the real world, razor-wire fences are being erected between member states — while Austria sensibly breaks all the rules by refusing to accept more than 80 asylum-seekers a day…

“One thing is clear. Nothing agreed in Brussels will tempt a single voter to cross from the Out to the In camp (though it may swing some people the other way)… Indeed, the Prime Minister comes out of this sorry saga badly wounded, just eight months after his surprise election triumph made him look all but invincible on the domestic political battleground. But it is not too late for him to redeem himself. He should tell voters, humbly and frankly, that he has tried hard but failed to secure a deal worth having…”

Strong Opposition to Cameron’s “Deal”

Deutsche Welle wrote on February 20:

“65 of the 330 members of Cameron’s Conservative party in the parliament [want] Britain to opt out of the bloc. Many opposition politicians dismissed Friday’s agreement. Shadow Foreign Secretary Hillary Benn of the Labour Party said Cameron had done ‘what he decided he had to do because he was too weak to stand up to his political party.’ Labour Party Chief Jeremy Corbyn, who supports Britain’s membership in the EU, described Cameron’s trip to Brussels as a ‘theatrical sideshow… designed to appease his opponents within the conservative party.’”

The Times of Israel wrote on February 20:

“Many British newspapers reacted sceptically to the Brussels deal, which contained restrictions on welfare payments for EU migrants and an opt-out for Britain from the EU’s goal towards ever closer union. ‘Cameron’s Climbdown,’ read a headline on the Daily Express website… The Daily Telegraph said Cameron had made ‘puny gains’ and The Times called it ‘Thin Gruel.”

Der Stern Online questioned whether the “deal” was enough to convince the British people to stay in the EU. The publication said that the alleged special status for Britain, exempting them from working towards “ever closer” European Union, was meaningless, as they were already exempt from many regulations, such as the Eurozone and the Schengen agreement.

Bild Online quoted Angela Merkel as saying that even though making some of the concessions to Britain were “not easy,” they did not give Britain “too much.” Still, she wished that Britain would have agreed to participating in creating an “ever closer union.”

Cameron vs. Johnson… the Fight for or against Brexit

The Daily Mail wrote on February 23:

“David Cameron today said Boris Johnson [mayor of London, conservative MP and potential successor to David Cameron] was a ‘fantastic friend’ but one who was ‘wrong’ on the EU… Mr Johnson… promised a ‘fantastic new future’ outside the EU where Britain was the ‘hub’ of new trading arrangements around the world… Mr Cameron insisted Britain was ‘better off’ inside the European Union because of the uncertainty a Brexit would bring…

“Mr Johnson…  has become the standard bearer for the campaign to get Britain out of the EU, said those promoting danger had been proved wrong before… Mr Johnson today said he was determined to seize the opportunity to quit a European Union which was ‘wasteful, anti-democratic and I think evolving ever forwards towards a super state I don’t think most British people want to be involved with’…

“The six Cabinet rebels voting for Britain to leave the EU have been banned from using any government material or resources to campaign for Out, under strict new rules published today. Jeremy Heywood, the Cabinet Secretary, sent a letter to all civil servants this morning telling them that government resources must only be used in the referendum campaign if it supports the Government’s official stance in support of Britain’s membership of the EU. It risks causing further anger among Tory Eurosceptics as it will put pro-Brexit ministers at a significant disadvantage to pro-EU members of the Government in the run up to June’s referendum.”

That is how politics are made in a supposedly free and democratic country.

“Deutsche Boerse Plans London Stock Exchange Takeover”

CNN wrote on February 23:

“The London Stock Exchange could soon have a new German owner. A huge merger looks set to reshape Europe’s stock exchanges.

“German market operator Deutsche Boerse… wants to join forces with the London Stock Exchange…, the companies said Tuesday. They described the proposed transaction as a ‘merger of equals,’ but Deutsche Boerse shareholders would end up owning more than 54% in the new company. Shares in the London Stock Exchange soared by as much as 20% after the announcement and Deutsche Boerse shares jumped by about 9%.

“The combined exchanges would have more heft to compete against the New York Stock Exchange operator, Intercontinental Exchange, which also owns markets in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Portugal and the U.K. through its Euronext business. Shares in Intercontinental Exchange were dipping by about 1.5% Tuesday. Based on U.K. rules, Deutsche Boerse will have to make a formal offer by March 22 or walk away from the deal…”

British Schoolchildren Under Attack

NewsWithViews wrote on February 20:

“British schoolchildren are being heavily targeted and ‘used’ to reform society… This was illustrated in a recent survey carried out by the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England who recently distributed a questionnaire to schoolchildren in Brighton and Hove.

“The questionnaire asked the children, aged from 13 – 18 to choose from over 20 gender options on how it best described their gender, to include: Tomboy, Trans boy, Gender fluid, Agender, Androgynous, Bi-gender, Non-binery, Gender queer, Gender non-conforming, Tri gender, In the middle of boy and girl, Intersex.

“… you can only imagine the type of identity crisis and confusion you would experience when you are just 13, in relation to the suggestion that you should fall into one of these categories.

“In an article from the Telegraph it read that the head teacher from one of the schools said: ‘We want all our young people to feel comfortable with who they are, to understand that the notion of gender can go beyond the traditional idea of simply being either male and female, and to recognise that people can use a range of terms to describe their gender identity.’…

“It is reported that the survey was later withdrawn for amendments, yet not abolished, after the Children’s Commissioner, Anne Longfield received complaints. The problem with labels, thoughts and feelings, is that they are terribly hard to shake off once you have accepted their distortion of reality…”

The abominations continue. See the next article.

Jesus a Transgender Woman?

The Daily Mail reported on February 14:

“A play that portrays Jesus as a transgender woman who refers to God as ‘Mum’ is to be performed in a Church of England church today. To the fury of critics who say the play is deeply offensive, the Bishop of Manchester, David Walker, will not block the staging of The Gospel According To Jesus, Queen Of Heaven.

“The one-woman play by Jo Clifford, an award-winning Scottish playwright who has herself changed gender, imagines Jesus returning to earth as a ‘trans woman’ and retelling the parables with a transsexual slant.”

God’s patience with this evil generation is amazing!

Fire From Heaven

The Daily Mail wrote on February 22:

“A huge fireball crashed into the Atlantic earlier this month – and went almost unseen. The event took place on February 6 at 14:00 UTC when a meteor exploded in the air 620 miles (1,000km) off the coast of Brazil. It released energy equivalent to 13,000 tons of TNT, which is the same as the energy used in the first atomic weapon that leveled Hiroshima in 1945…

“Nasa tracks around 12,992 near-Earth objects which have been discovered orbiting within our solar system close to our own orbit. It estimates around 1,607 are classified as Potentially Hazardous Asteroids… scientists have long said that these space rocks could threaten life on Earth…

“In fact, the Earth had a ‘near-miss’ only a few months ago… The bus-sized asteroid, named 2014 EC, came within 38,300 (61,637km) miles of Earth in March – around a sixth of the distance between the moon and our planet…

“The threat is so serious that former astronaut Ed Lu has described it as ‘cosmic roulette’ and said that only ‘blind luck’ has so far saved humanity from a serious impact.”

Is Angela Merkel Still the Right One?

The Telegraph wrote on February 12:

“Six months ago Angela Merkel was being hailed as the saviour of Europe, living up to the continent’s founding ideals of openness and tolerance by throwing open the gates of Germany to millions of refugees fleeing the horrors of Syria’s civil war… That was September – but how quickly the mood seems to have soured, as Germany comes to terms with the realities involved in absorbing more than a million migrants who were promised a better life.

“Is Europe’s Iron Lady really finished?… Is the most powerful politician in Europe about to be swept away by events in Syria, Turkey and North Africa that are increasingly beyond her control?…

“Germany hasn’t quite fallen out of love with her. Better to say the romance is on the rocks…It is worth noting that if there was an election tomorrow her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party would still be the biggest in Germany, and its current coalition would still command a majority… How can that be? A number of reasons. Perhaps chief among these is that Mrs Merkel doesn’t have a serious rival at the moment, either among the parties or political personalities…

“The crucial test for Mrs Merkel will be elections in three German states next month. It was defeat in a state election that triggered the downfall of her predecessor Gerhard Schröder in 2005. Mrs Merkel’s CDU does not have to win the state votes on March 13, but if it does not make a respectable showing the party could panic and look to appoint a new leader in time for next year’s national elections.

“She is also facing a legal challenge from the indefatigable Mr Seehofer [Premier of Bavaria], who has vowed to challenge her refugee policy in the courts as unconstitutional… If Mr Seehofer’s legal challenge to the country’s asylum policy is upheld in the courts, it could plunge Germany into a constitutional crisis and leave Mrs Merkel facing calls to resign…

“There is no obvious candidate now — but Mrs Merkel was far from an obvious candidate when she came out of nowhere to seize the party crown from Helmut Kohl, the man who had presided over the reunification of Germany. If Mrs Merkel falls, the repercussions will be felt far beyond Germany’s borders. In recent years she has been the dominant political force within the EU… It was largely Mrs Merkel who steered the EU though the Eurozone crisis. If she falls with the continent divided over refugees, new leadership will have to emerge somewhere…”

Merkel All Alone

The Local wrote on February 14:

“Abandoned by France, defied by eastern Europe, German Chancellor Angela Merkel cuts a lonely figure in her struggle for EU ‘solidarity’ on the refugee crisis ahead of a Brussels summit… Merkel, long dubbed the ‘Queen of Europe’, has seen poll numbers drop at home, coalition members rebel and EU allies duck away as the refugee crisis has sparked deep discord and threatened the bloc’s system of open borders…

“She suggested its members could help Turkey’s refugee effort beyond the three billion euros ($3.3 billion) already committed by the EU. Turkey, which is hosting over 2.7 million mostly Syrian refugees, has voiced deep frustration with the EU as a fresh wave of Syrian refugees mass on its border. Angry over calls that Turkey should do more, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last week that his nation could throw out its existing refugees, threatening to fly and bus them to Europe. ‘We do not have the word “idiot” written on our foreheads,’ he said. ‘We will be patient, but we will do what we have to. Don’t think that the planes and the buses are there for nothing.’”

Merkel Blasted by Russia and France

The Local wrote on February 12:

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal refugee policy, which brought 1.1 million asylum seekers to Germany in 2015, is not sustainable in the long run, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned Friday… The French prime minister’s criticisms… came after his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev lambasted Merkel’s asylum policy. ‘It’s quite simply stupid to open Europe’s doors wide and invite in everyone who wants to come to your country,’ Medvedev said… ‘European migration policy is a total failure, all that is absolutely frightening,’ Medvedev added…

“But there was no sign of backing down from Merkel’s government on Friday…

“Opposition has been growing within Germany against Merkel’s decision to open the doors to those fleeing war and persecution. An opinion poll published late January showed that nearly 40 percent of German voters want Merkel to quit over her asylum policy…”

Merkel Responsible for War in Europe?

Breitbart wrote on February 17:

“One of Poland’s most popular weekly magazines (wSieci–The Network) has splashed a graphic depiction of the rape of Europe’s women by migrants on its front cover. The image may be one of the most politically incorrect illustrations of the migrant crisis to date… Featuring a personification of Europa being pawed at by dark hands — what the German media would perhaps euphemistically term ‘southern’ or ‘Mediterranean’ — the headline decries the ‘Islamic Rape of Europe’.

“Making perfectly clear the intention of the edition, the edition features articles titled ‘Does Europe Want to Commit Suicide?’ and ‘The Hell of Europe’. The news-stand blurb declares: ‘In the new issue of the weekly Network, a report about what the media and Brussels elite are hiding from the citizens of the European Union’…

“Outlining the fundamental differences between eastern Islam and western Christianity — ‘culture, architecture, music, gastronomy, dress’ — the editorial explains these two worlds have been at war ‘over the last 14 centuries’ and the world is now witnessing a colossal ‘clash of two civilisations in the countries of old Europe’. This clash is brought by Muslims who come to Europe and ‘carry conflict with the Western world…’

“The magazine also had strong words for German Chancellor Angela Merkel… ‘the arrival of “millions” of cultural Muslims will ‘shock and undermine Europe’. The blame for this, the article lays firmly at the feet of Mrs. Merkel.”

Polish Magazine Causes Outrage

The Independent wrote on February 17:

“The right-wing Polish weekly magazine wSieci (The Network) has caused outrage with its latest front cover. The publication features the image of a white woman, draped with the European Union flag, screaming as she is being groped and assaulted by dark skinned male arms. Twitter users have compared the images with fascist propaganda in Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, which used images of women being attacked by Jewish and North African men.

“The image is a reference to the sexual assaults that have been claimed to have been perpetrated by migrant and refugee men against European women. The 1,000 reports of theft, sexual assault and rape of women at Cologne’s central train station on New Year’s Eve led to calls for stronger immigration controls…

“[The author] believes that whilst Muslims are actively promoting this [cultural] war, Europeans are engineering their own downfall by ignoring the negative impacts of multiculturalism.  Quoting historian Arnold Toynbee, he writes: ‘Civilisations die from suicide, not by murder’…

“The news comes after Poland’s government – alongside Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia – stated that they will support Balkan countries to seal their borders with Greece in order to stem the flow of migrants and refugees.”

Muslim Violence in Germany, While Extraordinary Amounts of Money Are Given Away

Daily Mail wrote on February 11:

“Christians, women and gay men are among the groups of asylum seekers needing their own accommodation in Germany after facing attacks by fellow [Muslim] migrants…There are also growing numbers of reports citing violence between the mostly Muslim groups that remain, with frequent police callouts to tackle the violence…

“Germany needs 450 million euros to integrate just ten per cent of the migrants and refugees who have arrived in the country in the past year, the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs said… Bundesagentur fur Arbeit (BA)… boss Detlef Scheele said… that if things went really well, in the first year of arrival maybe ten per cent of the refugees might end up with a job, and in five years it might be half.  He estimated that after 15 years, it could be around 70 per cent…”

Crazy German Governmental Idea Provokes Furious Reaction

The Local wrote on February 12:

“The government has announced plans to set a €5,000 limit on payments in cash – provoking a furious reaction from politicians, media and public alike… The outcry came from all quarters, with the populist right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) just as vocal as the right-on left-wing Green Party and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP). Economic weekly WirtschaftsWoche made the plans the cover story on Friday’s edition, titled ‘Save cash!’.

“And an article in highly regarded broadsheet the Süddeutsche Zeitung suggested the move was nothing less than a step in the direction of totalitarianism. The immediate suspicion was that – far from being aimed at preventing terrorism and organized crime as the government professed – the move was meant to help the state pry into the smallest minutiae of Germans’ lives…

“It is clear that Germans put a high value on individual liberty… This prizing of freedom… meant that imposing a limit on hard currency was like playing with matches around a powder keg for German leaders. Polls consistently show that Germans prefer cash to cards… with people feeling they can keep a better overview of their expenses, and they can keep their shopping list away from the government and companies’ prying eyes…”

To MANDATORILY limit cash payments is an absolutely crazy idea… and it DOES give rise to the question, as posed by the Süddeutsche Zeitung whether the real goal is to create a totalitarian government in Germany.

“Europe’s Convinced U.S. Won’t Solve Its Problems”

Bloomberg wrote on February 13:

“Europe is facing a convergence of the worst crises since World War II, and the overwhelming consensus among officials and experts here is that the U.S. no longer has the will or the ability to play an influential role in solving them.

“At the Munich Security Conference, the prime topics are the refugee crisis, the Syrian conflict, Russian aggression and the potential dissolution of the European Union’s very structure. Top European leaders repeatedly lamented that 2015 saw all of Europe’s problems deepen, and unanimously predicted that in 2016 they would get even worse. ‘The question of war and peace has returned to the continent,’ German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the audience, indirectly referring to Russian military interventions. ‘We had thought that peace had returned to Europe for good.’

“What was missing from the conference speeches and even the many private discussions in the hallways, compared to previous years, was the discussion of what Europe wanted or even expected the U.S. to do. Several European officials told me that there was little expectation that President Barack Obama, in his last year in office, would make any significant policy changes to address what European governments see an existential set of crises that can’t wait for a new administration in Washington…

“During the first day of the conference, the U.S. role in Europe was hardly mentioned in the public sessions. In the private sessions, many participants told me that European governments are not only resigned to a lack of American assertiveness, they also are now reluctantly accepting a Russia that is more present than ever in European affairs, and not for the better…”

Europe will become more and more self-reliant, as it understands that it cannot count on the USA.

War Room of Lawyers in Brussels

The EUObserver wrote on February 17:

“EU leaders will gather on Thursday (18  February) afternoon in Brussels to kick off the meeting from which British prime minister David Cameron hopes to produce a deal for the UK that would enable him to put the UK’s EU membership to a referendum by June… However, Donald Tusk in a letter to EU leaders on Wednesday warned that ‘there is still no guarantee that we will reach an agreement’ and urged them to remain constructive… Leaders at the summit will be armed with a ‘war room of lawyers’, as one EU source put it, to tackle the remaining political and legal issues in the draft deal…

“The UK’s request to be left out of what the EU treaty defines as ‘ever closer union’ is [one] issue to be discussed by leaders, where different interpretations of deeper EU integration might clash.”

Merkel Woos Cameron

The Local wrote on February 13:

“German chancellor Angela Merkel has reaffirmed that she wants the UK to remain “an active member of a successful European Union”, as British Prime Minister David Cameron attended a banquet in Hamburg. Speaking at the historic ‘Matthiae-Mahl’ banquet, Merkel insisted, to thunderous applause, that continued UK membership was not only in Germany’s interest, ‘but also in Britain’s and in the interests of the entire EU’.

“The banquet’s host, Hamburg mayor Olaf Scholz, said Britain was ‘irreplaceable’ in European foreign and defence policy. ‘And from an economic point of view, too… we can’t and won’t do without London,’ he added. Scholz, a member of the Social Democrat SPD party which shares power with Merkel’s conservative CDU, said Britain needed to show ‘pragmatism and courage… and their ability to compromise.’…

“Cameron expressed confidence that a deal could be reached which would allow Britain to remain in the European Union and avoid a so-called ‘Brexit’… ‘So when it comes to the question of Britain’s future in Europe, my aim is clear: I want to keep Britain inside a reformed European Union.’”

Scaremongering about EU

Express wrote on February 14:

“It’s a bit rich for the Germans to tell us that we couldn’t survive without them and it will undoubtedly provoke hollow laughter from those who still remember what Churchill in 1940 called ‘our finest hour’. Then Britain stood on its own and triumphed against tremendous odds. But now the various forces of ‘Project Fear’ – ranging from our own Prime Minister to German MP Gunther Krichbaum, who is head of the Bundestag’s EU affairs committee – deliver dire and entirely unfounded warnings about what will happen to Britain outside the EU.

“Mr Krichbaum threatens Britain with unfavourable trading conditions which led to a colourful exchange between him and anti-EU MP Sir Bill Cash, who said: ‘What do you take us for? Do you think we are incapable of running our own affairs?’ It is all perhaps to be expected that German politicians and Brussels apparatchiks are in the business of running Britain down. But even worse is the intervention by Dame Carolyn McCall, the boss of easyJet, who claimed that Brexit would increase the costs of budget airlines and, mysteriously, threaten the safety of British tourists.

“In the coming weeks there will be a lot of this kind of scaremongering from our own politicians, from pro-EU business leaders and from Europe. Nearly 70 years ago Britain had no qualms about going it alone and the threat we faced was a terrible one. We should show the same fortitude now.”

Except, it IS prophesied that Britain will ultimately leave the EU, and that shortly thereafter, a terrible war will break out between continental Europe and the UK, which the UK will lose.

Cameron’s Deal Does Nothing for Britain

Express wrote on February 17:

“Brussels’ top bureaucrat Jean-Claude Juncker sparked fury today after he claimed Britain ‘needs’ the European Union (EU) and would vote to stay in the 28-country bloc when the referendum is held… The president of the European Commission was accused of being ‘arrogant’ after he declared there was no ‘Plan B’ to the EU negotiations as David Cameron fights to salvage his renegotiation deal… Mr Juncker said the Prime Minister would be granted a ‘fair’ deal on his demands to alter the UK’s membership of the EU, but added that Brussels officials are also working to satisfy the 27 other member states…

“The ex-Luxembourg prime minister told German newspaper Bild: ‘… We need Great Britain in our European family and the British need the European Union.’

“But Mr Juncker’s comments caused outrage among British eurosceptics, as they scoffed at his suggestion the UK wouldn’t survive outside the EU. Ukip MEP Jane Collins… told Express.co.uk: ‘Just like Tony Blair, Juncker’s an asset to the Leave campaign… Every time he opens his mouth he lets people know just what the goals of the EU really are and just how pathetic Cameron’s “renegotiation” is… In fact the Prime Minister’s “reforms” are more watered-down than one of Prince Charles’ homeopathic remedies.’

“Tory MP Steve Baker, co-chairman of Conservatives for Britain and a member of the Vote Leave campaign, told Express.co.uk: ‘This is a question for the British people to decide first in their own interests.’… A spokesman for the Leave.EU campaign said: ‘… Cameron’s “deal” doesn’t do anything to bring powers back to Britain… Britain survived for thousands of years before the European Union, we can do so again after we vote to leave.'”

Apple RIGHTLY Resists!

Yahoo!News reported on February 17:

“The debate over encryption has reached new heights in a legal battle between Apple and the FBI. In response to a federal magistrate’s order requiring Apple to assist the agency in accessing data from a phone belonging to one of the San Bernardino shooters, the company is pushing back, pledging to challenge the request in the name of its customers’ privacy.

“CEO Tim Cook published a public response early Wednesday morning… “‘We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good,’ Cook wrote in a letter to his customers. ‘Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.’

“The 3-page court order requires Apple’s engineers to create a new iPhone operating system designed to bypass the company’s security features and install it on the iPhone 5C that belonged to Farook’s employer, the San Bernardino Department of Public Health… Despite a warrant, prosecutors argued… that, ‘The government has been unable to complete the search because it cannot access the iPhone’s encrypted content. Apple has the exclusive technical means which would assist the government in completing its search but has declined to provide that assistance voluntarily.’

“While the order applies only to Farook’s device, Cook argued that creating this new software would ultimately compromise the privacy of the ‘tens of millions of American citizens’ who use Apple devices. ‘In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession,’ he wrote. ‘The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.’”

The New York Times added on February 17:

“In his statement, Mr. Cook called the court order an ‘unprecedented step’ by the federal government. ‘We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand,’ he wrote…

“The legal issues are complicated. They involve statutory interpretation, rather than constitutional rights, and they could end up before the Supreme Court. As Apple noted, the F.B.I., instead of asking Congress to pass legislation resolving the encryption fight, has proposed what appears to be a novel reading of the All Writs Act of 1789… In 2005, a federal magistrate judge rejected the argument that the law could be used to compel a telecommunications provider to allow real-time tracking of a cellphone without a search warrant…

“The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit organization that defends digital rights, said it was siding with Apple. ‘The government is asking Apple to create a master key so that it can open a single phone,’ it said Tuesday evening. ‘And once that master key is created, we’re certain that our government will ask for it again and again, for other phones, and turn this power against any software or device that has the audacity to offer strong security.’…”

Also, Tim Cook wrote this in his letter to APPLE’s customers:

“When the FBI has requested data that’s in our possession, we have provided it. Apple complies with valid subpoenas and search warrants, as we have in the San Bernardino case. We have also made Apple engineers available to advise the FBI, and we’ve offered our best ideas on a number of investigative options at their disposal… But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone.

“Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession…

“Rather than asking for legislative action through Congress, the FBI is proposing an unprecedented use of the All Writs Act of 1789 to justify an expansion of its authority… The implications of the government’s demands are chilling. If the government can use the All Writs Act to make it easier to unlock your iPhone, it would have the power to reach into anyone’s device to capture their data. The government could extend this breach of privacy and demand that Apple build surveillance software to intercept your messages, access your health records or financial data, track your location, or even access your phone’s microphone or camera without your knowledge…”

The Washington Post wrongly opinionated on February 17 that “Apple faces an uphill fight over the Farook case in the courtroom, where law enforcement’s right to demand access to the phone data is fairly clear-cut.” But this is not addressing the case at issue. Rather, the magistrate’s order seems to be illegal on its face. It is absurd to compel a company to CREATE a new iPhone operating system designed to bypass the company’s security features. The repercussions and the security risks are grave and enormous, and those who advocate that APPLE should comply don’t seem to understand what they are saying. This does not negate the sad fact that APPLE may still lose in America’s court system, but as the New York Times suggested, it might have to be decided by the US Supreme Court. Also note the next articles.

Conservatives Attack Apple

Newsmax wrote on February 17:

“MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and other conservative voices railed Wednesday morning over Apple’s opposition to a court ruling that would help the FBI crack the San Bernardino terrorists’ iPhone passcode voluntarily, saying the company is jeopardizing the nation’s security to protect the rights of two dead killers…

“GOP front-runner Donald Trump, on Fox News’ ‘Fox & Friends’ program, also agreed that Apple needs to unlock the phone. ‘… to think that Apple won’t allow us to get into her cell phone, who do they think they are?’

“Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, also appearing on the same show, commented that national security trumps Apple’s worries about privacy. ‘I blame this to some extent on [Sens.] Rand Paul and Ted Cruz and the ridiculous hysteria they created about privacy and the government trying to take the information for improper purposes,’ said Giuliani.”

Sadly, Scarborough, Trump, Guiliani and others just don’t get it. Their expressed opinions in this matter are very dangerous.

Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter and WhatsApp Support Apple

Bloomberg wrote on February 18:

“From Google Inc. to Facebook Inc., the industry’s biggest names have rallied around Apple Inc.’s chief executive officer after he vowed to resist a court order demanding it help unlock the iPhone of a shooter in a terrorist attack… The escalation with the FBI… galvanized the company’s U.S. peers and forced them to choose between helping the government fight crime and protecting their customers’ privacy…

“Reform Government Surveillance, a group representing companies including Google, Facebook, Microsoft Corp. and Twitter Inc., issued a statement on Wednesday reiterating that, while it’s ‘extremely important’ to deter crime and terrorism, no company should be required to build backdoors to their own technology…

“Google CEO Sundar Pichai came to Cook’s defense, saying the government’s request could spur ‘a troubling precedent’ in comments echoed by WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum…

“Google provides law enforcement access to data ‘based on valid legal orders, but that’s wholly different than requiring companies to enable hacking of customer devices and data,’ Pichai wrote in a series of tweets…

“Ultimately, the matter needs to be decided by Congress, said Robert Cattanach, a lawyer at Dorsey & Whitney who practices in areas of regulatory litigation including cybersecurity…

“Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, said there was a risk this one order against Apple could lead to many more in the future. ‘While the FBI is attempting to be very clear that this is a one off request, there is no chance that it is,’ Cuban wrote on his blog. ‘There will be many government agencies that many times in the future, point to Apple’s compliance as a precedent. Once this happens, we all roll down that slippery slope of lost privacy together.’…

“‘Silicon Valley stands with Apple,’ Bret Taylor, co-founder of Quip and former chief technology officer of Facebook and co- creator of Google Maps, posted on Twitter. Steven Sinofsky, a former senior executive at Microsoft, on Twitter called for ‘broad support from full stack of technology companies.’”

Worldwide Implications

The Guardian wrote on February 17:

“Analysts and lawmakers warn FBI that ramifications over its demand that Apple unlock San Bernardino killer’s iPhone ‘could snowball around the world’… Authoritarian governments including Russia and China will demand greater access to mobile data should Apple lose a watershed encryption case brought by the FBI, leading technology analysts, privacy experts and legislators have warned.

“Apple’s decision to resist a court order to unlock a password-protected iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino killers has created a worldwide privacy shockwave, with campaigners around the world expecting the struggle to carry major implications for the future of mobile and internet security. They warned that Barack Obama’s criticism of a similar Chinese measure last year now risked ringing hollow.

“Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a leading legislator on privacy and tech issues, warned the FBI to step back from the brink or risk setting a precedent for authoritarian countries. ‘This move by the FBI could snowball around the world. Why in the world would our government want to give repressive regimes in Russia and China a blueprint for forcing American companies to create a backdoor?’ Wyden told the Guardian. ‘Companies should comply with warrants to the extent they are able to do so, but no company should be forced to deliberately weaken its products. In the long run, the real losers will be Americans’ online safety and security.’

“Wyden, an Oregon Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said the FBI was using an ‘unprecedented reading of a nearly 230-year old law’ that put ‘at risk the foundations of strong security for our people and privacy in the digital age. If upheld, this decision could force US technology companies to actually build hacking tools for government against their will, while weakening cybersecurity for millions of Americans in the process,’ Wyden said.

“Should the FBI prevail, and Apple create what is functionally a custom-built version of its mobile operating system, governments around the world ‘will see this as a blank check of legitimacy’, said human rights lawyer Carly Nyst, who called the Apple showdown ‘groundbreaking’….

“US-based tech firms have long dealt with efforts by countries worldwide to undermine user security in the name of law enforcement and national security – terms that vary widely with government prerogative. China in particular has fought with Apple over the iPhone, in a struggle that echoes the FBI’s latest move. Chinese state media in 2014 labeled the iPhone a national security threat for collecting location data from users and compromising ‘state secrets’. The accusation, coming after leaks from whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the National Security Agency had hacked Chinese tech giant Huawei, prompted Cook to defend the devices’ security features.

“‘Apple has never worked with any government agency from any country to create a backdoor in any of our products or services. We have also never allowed access to our servers. And we never will,’ Cook said at the time…”

Hitler Sent by God?

On February 14, The Times of Israel wrote the following:

“Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz repudiated evangelical Christian leader Mike Bickle’s statements that Adolf Hitler was a ‘hunter’ sent by God to target the Jewish people… while at the same time praising Bickle’s service and the work of his ministry…

“Bickle, the founder and director of the International House of Prayer, a Kansas City-based ministry, works actively to convert Jews to Christianity… In public sermons over the years, Bickle has focused intensely on end-times prophesies, and has predicted that Jesus will not return until Jews embrace him as their Lord and savior. He has predicted a new era of Holocaust-like conditions for Jews before the Second Coming, insisting that Jews who do not embrace Jesus will either die or be sent to prison or concentration camps.

“In a 2011 sermon, Bickle cited a passage from Jeremiah 16:16 to elucidate the attempted extermination of European Jewry. ‘The Lord says, “I’m going to give all 20 million of them the chance to respond to the fishermen. And I give them grace.’ And he says, “And if they don’t respond to grace, I’m going to raise up the hunters.” And the most famous hunter in recent history is a man named Adolf Hitler,’ he told an audience…”

Hitler was not sent by God, but by Satan. Our free booklets, “Europe in Prophecy,” and “The Ten European Revivals of the Ancient Roman Empire,” explain this fact in much detail.

Why the Republican Debate Was So Brutal

Time wrote on February 14:

“Saturday night’s gathering of the remaining GOP presidential candidates was not a debate. It was a savage roar on the road to the White House as hopefuls shouted over each other, questioned each other’s character and, in one case, even went after a candidate’s mother. The ruckus was, in many ways, overdue… But was it too late to throw up a roadblock between Donald Trump and his party’s nomination?…

“It was a furious night that found, for the first time, Trump squarely being piled on from all sides. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush excoriated his business record and foreign policy judgement, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz suggested he would appoint liberals to the Supreme Court and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio lambasted him for questioning the legacy of George W. Bush.

“Trump alternated between condescending smirks and prickly interruptions, but it was clear he was getting his first real all-against-him attack. He did not enjoy it… But Trump was hardly the only candidate who left the stage in Greenville, S.C., bloodied. The candidates are increasingly desperate to find a break-out moment—often at their peers’ expenses… Trump and Rubio ganged up to call Cruz a liar and Rubio was once again hit on his work on comprehensive immigration reform. Bush was called to defend his family’s legacy time and again…

“South Carolina has an appetite for such intra-party sparring—in fact, the state rewards it. Voters here, in the first Southern state to have a nominating contest, want a fighter for a nominee. Spurious attacks are the norm, and harsh rhetoric helps candidates fare well. Just ask Newt Gingrich, who four years ago used a fiery tone to best Mitt Romney…

“At different points, it was as if Trump were trying to lose support and goad the crowd into rowdiness. He mocked South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, who has deep supporters in some corners. He praised Planned Parenthood [but condemned them for their abortion practices], a bogeyman among conservatives. He defended eminent domain, called George W. Bush a liar and blamed him for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks [Actually, he said that 9/11 happened on his watch, and that he did not keep the country safe.]. He called the war in Iraq a folly [stating that there were no weapons of mass destruction, which is an undeniable fact; even George W. Bush admitted this]—while standing on a stage in a state with the heaviest concentration of veterans in America.

“It might not matter. Trump has a lead in the polls here… His crowds respond to his brazen style and in-your-face personality. Trump’s brand of personality-driven politics might be what Republicans decide they want in a nominee…

“The debate marked the realization by more of his rivals that to win the nomination, they’ll have to get past Trump…”

And that will be quite a challenge!

The Real Weakness of the Republican Party

Salon wrote on February 14:

“I’ve written before about [the] influence of Matt Drudge [editor of the “Drudge Report”] and his online poll, and it continues to help paint a picture of the political reality inside the GOP. Drudge has carefully curated the news content on his site to build a massive anti-establishment army that is much bigger than the loyal GOP establishment…

“The problem for… the Republican establishment is that there just aren’t that many of them left anymore. Their numbers have dwindled over the years as more and more longtime Republicans… have left the party…

“The all-out war inside the GOP between the establishment loyalists and Drudge’s army was on display during the debate last night, and it was loud and raucous. The loudest loyalist boos at Trump came when he stood on that stage in the traditionally pro-Bush state of South Carolina and essentially blamed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011 on former President George W. Bush. Bush is still very popular among GOP elites, especially there. In fact, his brother, presidential candidate Jeb Bush, will be campaigning with the former president in South Carolina this week.

“The real weakness of the GOP establishment will be measured on Saturday in the [primary in South Carolina] because it will show, in real hard numbers, just how many traditional Republicans are left. If Trump can blame 9-11 on establishment icon George W. Bush and then win the South Carolina primary, then we’ll know that the old Republican Party just doesn’t exist anymore. If that doesn’t sink his campaign, then nothing will, and he will be the GOP nominee. We’ll know for sure on Saturday, but the Drudge Poll today has given us a hint.”

GOP Stacks Debate Audience with Anti-Trump and Anti-Cruz Donors and Interest Groups

The GOP is becoming desperate in trying to do whatever they can in order to prevent Trump from becoming the Republican nominee. But their actions might backfire.

Breitbart reported on February 14:

“The chairman of the local Republican Party here confirmed to local television that 2016 frontrunner billionaire Donald Trump’s concerns—and those of his closest competitor Ted Cruz—with the Republican National Committee (RNC) allocation of debate audience tickets are well-placed.

“… more than 1000 tickets… went not to voters in the upcoming election and not to campaigns for equal distribution to their supporters but to special interest distribution of those connected to the party, mostly high dollar donors…

“Trump’s and Cruz’s concerns are even being confirmed by many across the political spectrum. In fact, even the left-of-center Huffington Post confirms that the RNC’s ticket allocation system seems to have been ‘behind’ the excessive and unwarranted booing of Trump and Cruz—and cheering of the donor class supported Rubio and Bush…

“Vox, another left-of-center outlet, ran a headline that made it even clearer: ‘The Republican establishment packed the debate audience with Donald Trump haters.’… Vox… admits that Trump’s claim on stage that the odd—and unrepresentative of the party’s voting base—audience was made up of ‘Jeb’s special interests and lobbyists’ was really not ‘that far-fetched.’”

With these questionable tactics (which are vehemently denied by the GOP), the Republican establishment is harming itself.

The Pope vs. Trump

Newsmax reported on February 18:

“Pope Francis assailed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s views on U.S. immigration as ‘not Christian’ on Thursday, prompting the billionaire businessman to reprimand the religious leader as ‘disgraceful’ for questioning his faith…

“In a freewheeling conversation on his flight home from a visit to Mexico, Francis told reporters, ‘A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.’…

“Asked if American Catholics should vote for someone with Trump’s views, Francis said, ‘I am not going to get involved in that. I say only that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that. We must see if he said things in that way and in this I give the benefit of the doubt,’ he said.

“Trump… said, ‘If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president [He added, quite inconsistently and contradictorily, that under his presidency, such an attack would not have happened.]… For a religious leader to question a person’s faith is disgraceful…  I’m a very good Christian [Trump is a Presbyterian] … I’m proud of it.’…

“Trump’s social media director… tweeted, ‘Amazing comments from the Pope – considering Vatican City is 100 percent surrounded by massive walls.’

“Trump accused the Mexican government of making disparaging remarks about him to the pope ‘because they want to continue to rip off the United States, both on trade and at the border…’  He said the pope only heard one side of the story and did not see what Trump called the crime, drug trafficking and negative economic impact Mexico’s policies had on the United States.

“Evangelical Christian leader Jerry Falwell Jr, who has endorsed Trump and spent time with the candidate on his private plane, described him as generous to his employees and family, adding, ‘I’m convinced he’s a Christian. I believe he has faith in Jesus Christ.’”

The Bible prophesies that the relationship between the Church of Rome and the USA will deteriorate dramatically.

German Minister Blasts Jeb Bush’s America

The Local wrote on February 17:

“After US presidential candidate Jeb Bush tweeted an image that seemed to equate the American Dream with gun ownership, Germany’s Justice Minister struck back with his own image of the USA. Jeb Bush’s tweet simply read ‘America’ and included a photo of the former Florida governor’s personal sidearm, engraved with his name and his office.

“Supporters showered the tweet with likes – reaching almost 19,000 by late morning on Wednesday. But the tweet also turned into a snowballing Twitter row, provoking mass outrage and an outpouring of parody.

“German Justice Minister Heiko Maas apparently couldn’t resist getting involved in the mess, copying Jeb’s tweet but replacing the pistol with the Bill of Rights. It looks like an attempt to show that Germans value America’s long history of constitutional democracy more than the nation’s – to Europeans – puzzling attachment to machines that put small pieces of metal into other people very fast.”

Indeed, most Europeans have a hard time understanding America’s insane fascination with guns. More importantly, God does not approve of it, either.

Jeb Bush Comes Under More Fire 

JTA wrote on February 17:

“Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush tweeted an image of a gun manufactured by a U.S. company with a parent European firm that made firearms for Nazi troops… The image was retweeted over 22,400 times and prompted widespread commentary, mostly negative, across the Internet.

“FN America is owned by FN Herstal, a Belgium-based corporation… During the German occupation of Belgium in World War II, the Nazi military requisitioned the company…  to produce thousands of its weapons, including the pistols carried by Nazi officers and pilots.

“In addition… FN Herstal’s Five-Seven model gun is a popular weapon used by Mexican drug cartel leaders.”

Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia Dies… and Leaves Behind Another Fight…

Thomson/Reuters wrote on February 14:

“Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates hardened their positions on Sunday on blocking a move by President Barack Obama to replace the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, a lifetime appointment that would help decide some of the most divisive issues facing Americans. The next justice would tilt the balance of the nation’s highest court, which now consists of four conservatives and four liberals. The vacancy left by the death of Scalia, 79, quickly became an issue in the 2016 presidential race.

“The nine-justice court is set to decide its first major abortion case in nearly 10 years, as well as cases on voting rights, affirmative action and immigration. Cruz said the vacancy makes November’s election even more critical, warning that a justice chosen by Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders would mean the Second Amendment right to bear arms would be ‘written out’ of the Constitution and abortion on demand would become the law of the land…

“Democrat Obama said on Saturday that he would nominate someone to fill the now-empty seat, setting up a battle with the Republican-controlled Senate, which must approve any nominee. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said hours after Scalia’s death was announced that the high court vacancy should not be filled until Obama’s successor takes office next January so that voters can have a say in the selection. His Democratic counterpart, Harry Reid, said failure by the Senate to act would be a ‘shameful abdication’ of the chamber’s constitutional responsibilities…

“Trump, appearing on NBC, was [very] direct when asked what he would want in a nominee: ‘Someone just like Justice Scalia.’”

Conspiracy theories abound that Scalia’s death was not natural. What is puzzling is that no autopsy was ordered, even though state law seemed to have required one in this case, according to an article by Infowars, dated February 17, claiming that “By not performing an autopsy on late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Presidio Co. Judge Cinderela Guevara likely violated state law,” adding, “The question now is, will Texas Gov. Greg Abbott call for an investigation into what’s likely illegal behavior by a county judge?”

Russia To Send Iran Fighter Jets in Violation of UN Resolution

Fox News reported on February 17:

“Russia announced Wednesday it will sign a contract to supply a batch of fighter jets to Iran in violation of a U.N. ban… A U.N. resolution passed on July 20, just days after the landmark nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, including the U.S., forbids Iran from making conventional arms sales for the next five years.

“The resolution specifically bans the sale of ‘battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, [and] warships…’ from being purchased by Iran without prior approval from the U.N.

“The deal, if carried out, would represent Iran’s latest violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution…  Iran carried out a medium range ballistic missile test on Nov. 21 from a known missile test site along the Gulf of Oman. The test led to strong condemnation from members of the U.N. Security Council.

“The controversial agreement to supply the Islamic Republic with Sukhoi Su-30SM multi-role fighter jets comes one day after the Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan met in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin… Dehqan is accused of orchestrating the 1983 terror bombing that killed 220 U.S. Marines and 21 other service members in Beirut, Lebanon.”

Iran and Saudi Arabia Opposed to Valentine’s Day

The Associated Press wrote on February 12:

“Iranian news outlets reported the police directive Friday warning retailers against promoting ‘decadent Western culture through Valentine’s Day rituals.’ Police informed Tehran’s coffee and ice cream shops trade union to avoid any gatherings in which boys and girls exchange Valentine’s Day gifts.

“The annual Feb. 14 homage to romance… has become popular in recent years in Iran and other Middle East countries. The backlash in the Islamic Republic is part of a drive against the spread of Western culture. Saudi Arabia has also sought to stamp out Valentine’s Day but it’s celebrated widely in nearby places like Dubai.”

Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries oppose Valentine’s Day, which is in fact a pagan celebration. However, Muslim opposition is not based on biblical and godly concerns.

The CURSE of California’s Mandatory Vaccination Law

On February 11, the website of ptreyeslight.com published the following article by Dr. Michelle Veneziano, a family practice physician:

“The medical community acknowledges that vaccines are not 100 percent safe for everyone. A public dialogue that shares relevant, unbiased research is critical. When I began to look into vaccine safety, I discovered many studies that questioned their safety; I also found that these studies are not easily located in the medical literature. I discovered evidence that industry’s reach has run deep into trusted public health agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control.

“As I looked further, I discovered that tragic accounts of severe vaccine injury, usually thought to be rare, are in fact all too common. I discovered a host of peer-reviewed, non-industry-funded studies that illustrate that vaccines and the way we administer them pose very serious short and long-term health impacts, and not just to a marginal number of children…

“My work on this issue is not funded. The pharmaceutical industry, on the other hand, has many billions of dollars at stake. And its influence on the medical community is evident. The New York Times published a story that Harvard earned the grade of ‘F’ for rampant conflict of interest within its own medical school. Even Richard Horton, editor of the prestigious medical journal The Lancet wrote last year that ‘much of the scientific literature may simply be untrue.’…

“Skepticism among all physicians is rising more quickly, perhaps in part due to the mandating of the hepatitis B vaccine. The Hep-B virus is transmitted through blood, most commonly through the use of needles or through sexual contact. This vaccine contains aluminum, a known neurotoxin, and formaldehyde, a known carcinogen. Yet it is recommended on the first day of life and is now required for children to attend preschool. Common sense and science cannot support this practice…

“The United States ranks 49th in the developed world in health. According to non-industry-funded research, the chemical accumulation in our bodies from vaccines and other sources could be said to be claiming more lives than infectious diseases ever have or ever will. Vaccine preservatives and adjuvants are associated with cancers and other immuno-compromised states.

“Data connects aluminum in vaccines to Alzheimer’s and sudden infant death syndrome. We have the highest vaccination rate and the highest infant mortality rate in the developed world.  And the state with the highest vaccination rate also has the highest infant mortality rate.

“There are thousands of reports of a single vaccine causing devastating injury… Yet the C.D.C. still says it is permissible for babies to receive up to 13 vaccines at either their 12-month or 15-month checkups.

“If children were to receive all the recommended vaccines, they would be dosed 70 times before high school, compared to 22 times in 1983. All the while, rates of chronic illness are rising dramatically… Efforts are underway to author a new bill that could delay the implementation of Senate Bill 277 until a much-needed review and public discussion can take place…”

Let us pray that this ridiculous and DANGEROUS mandatory California vaccination law will be rescinded.

Leaders of Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches Meet

The Washington Post wrote on February 5:

“Pope Francis and the leader of the powerful Russian Orthodox Church plan a historic meeting next week in Cuba, officials said Friday, marking the most significant steps ever attempted to heal a schism that has divided Christianity between East and West for nearly 1,000 years… The churches have been formally estranged since the 11th century over issues such as papal authority and, more recently, by disputes over Roman Catholic reach into traditionally Orthodox regions.

“The planned encounter next Friday between Francis and Patriarch Kirill I at Havana’s airport also highlights apparent moves toward greater solidarity amid current worries. Among them: pressures facing ancient Christian communities in the Middle East from militant groups such as the Islamic State. Even the venue carries significance. Cuba, which once suppressed the Roman Catholic church as a Soviet client state, was picked because the legacy of Christian rifts remains too vivid in Europe, a Russian church official said.

“A full reconciliation would require major changes on both sides, but warmer ties sanctioned by the highest authorities would represent one of the biggest modern shifts in the world’s religious landscape. The Russian Church is by far the largest and most influential in the Orthodox world, which is a patchwork of various churches and patriarchs.”

Deutsche Welle wrote on February 6:

“The meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch will go down in history… The historic announcement came as a major surprise… It is a sensation, and not just for religious aficionados with an interest in ecumenical Christianity…

“Popes have been traveling the world for 50 years now. The papacy of John Paul II (1978-2005) was, at times, a global pilgrimage and missionary tour, frequently colored with Realpolitik nuances. Benedict XVI (2005-2013) continued that tradition. On the global map of papal travel destinations, there are not many untouched areas. The most significant are China and Russia. This week, the Vatican has published a long interview that Francis gave to a Chinese newspaper, and which has been widely reported about in the country’s media. Now, just three days later, there’s the announcement of the meeting in Havana…

“But the meeting in Havana points to another important, even historic, date this year that most Christians in the Western hemisphere likely haven’t registered… In June, Crete will be the scene of the first Orthodox Great and Holy Council in more than 1,000 years… Rome has long been in touch with most of the other representatives – only Kyrill and Moscow had until now been at arm’s length. That has now changed and could well have an effect on events in Crete. The Pope will travel to Mexico next Friday… But as part of that trip, he will also be entering a new era in ecumenical history.”

The website of mashable.com added on February 6:

“One is recognized as a humble leader who cares for the poor and has kissed the feet of peasants. The other has been plagued by scandal and become an object of ridicule because of his luxurious lifestyle, which includes an apparent penchant for pricey ski vacations in Switzerland…

“Patriarch Kirill I… is a staunch supporter of President Vladimir Putin and his conservative policies. He once famously called the Russian head of state a ‘miracle from God’ and he has come out in support of Moscow’s military campaign in Syria which he called a ‘holy war.’ That support has allowed the Russian Orthodox Church to grow exceptionally powerful over the past decade.

“But that has not stopped Kirill, who has called decisions by western countries to legalize same-sex marriage a ‘dangerous sign of the apocalypse,’ from being widely mocked by his subjects. The Russian public was outraged when he was seen wearing a $30,000 watch in a photograph published in 2012…

“The two are not likely to fully reconcile the churches’ differences, as that would require major concessions from both sides. Metropolitan Illarion, foreign policy chief of the Russian Orthodox Church, told reporters Friday that one major disagreement between the Holy See and the Russian Church is over various Orthodox churches in western Ukraine…

“The conflict centers on the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the country’s second-largest, which follows eastern church rites but answers to the Holy See. The Russian Orthodox Church has considered western Ukraine its traditional territory and has resented papal influence there.

“Francis also angered the Moscow patriarchy and the Kremlin when he came out in support of Kiev during the country’s revolution and remained behind Ukraine when Russia annexed Crimea and fomented the war in its eastern regions. More than 9,000 people have been killed in the conflict since April 2014…”

The Bible indicates very strongly that the Roman Catholic Church will again become the dominant force in traditional Christianity, under the powerful leadership of a charismatic pope. Those few Christian organizations which will not agree to come under the umbrella of the “mother church” will be ostracized and labeled as false sects and cults.

Vatican Cover-Up?

The Washington Post wrote on February 6:

“Pope Francis’ sex abuse advisory committee voted Saturday to sideline one of its members, a high-profile abuse survivor who had clashed with the commission over its mission.

“Peter Saunders, a British advocate for victims, had been highly critical of the Vatican’s slow pace of progress in taking measures to protect children and punish bishops who covered up for pedophile priests. He had also wanted the commission to intervene immediately in individual cases, rather than just craft long-term policies to fight abuse.

“During a commission meeting Saturday, ‘it was decided that Mr. Peter Saunders would take a leave of absence from his membership to consider how he might best support the commission’s work,’ the Vatican said…

“[Saunders] said the Vatican’s inaction in the face of continuing cases of children being raped and molested ‘made me lose faith in the process and lose faith in Pope Francis.’…

“The commission was formed after victims’ groups questioned whether the Argentine pope, who had never dealt with an abuse case, really understood the scope of the scandal… The commission had been highly critical of Francis’ decision to appoint a Chilean bishop despite allegations from abuse survivors that he had covered up for the country’s most notorious pedophile, the Rev. Fernando Karadima.

“One of Karadima’s victims, Juan Carlos Cruz, joined Saunders on Saturday in Rome in hopes of speaking to the commission but was refused. Cruz had been proposed as a possible commission member but emails published in the Chilean media showed how the Chilean church hierarchy worked to keep him off the panel.”

ABC News added on February 5:

“Cardinal George Pell is still too ill to travel from Rome to give evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse… His lawyers applied for the 74-year-old to be able to give evidence by audio visual link at hearings of the inquiry dealing with abuse in Ballarat. Several victims of abuse had stated their opposition to the request.

“A two-page medical report was handed up to support the application that a flight to Australia from Rome, where Cardinal Pell oversees the Vatican’s finances, could pose a serious risk to his health.”

It seems that the hierarchy in the Church of Rome want to keep indiscretions covered up while they promote themselves as having cleaned out an infested priesthood. 

Dangerous Catholic Beliefs

Daily Mail wrote on February 5:

“The embalmed body of a revered Roman Catholic monk who died nearly 50 years ago has arrived back at the Vatican to be blessed by the Pope in St Peter’s Basilica in front of thousands of worshipers. Padre Pio’s body was paraded through the streets in a crystal coffin as it made its way through The Vatican to the famous basilica at the request of Pope Francis as part of events to mark the ongoing Catholic Jubilee Year.

“He was accompanied on the trip to St Peter’s by another Saint Leopold Mandic (1866-1942), a Croatian Capuchin who was, like Pio, celebrated for his skill in receiving confessions – a quality Francis wants to champion during the Jubilee year…

“Italian Friar Pio, who had been interred in San Giovanni Rotondo in southern Italy was said to have suffered from the stigmata phenomenon – body marks corresponding to the wounds Jesus Christ received during his crucifixion…

“Cesarina Onesi, 74, [who] was among the thousands of faithful who turned out to accompany the coffins on the final leg of their journey to St Peter’s said she had been very moved by the experience. ‘I pray to him (Pio) every night, he is one of the four or five saints I pray to. He was a great man, so much faith, so much courage, so much humanity.’

“Canonised under Pope John-Paul II, Pio’s brand of popular, mystical Catholicism was less popular with the Vatican authorities when he was alive. He regularly recounted having experienced both heavenly and diabolic visions, other clerics claimed to have witnessed him levitating in ecstasy and he was frequently associated with apparently miraculous recoveries among the seriously ill…

“Many people said the brown-robed Padre Pio was able to predict events in their lives and knew what they were about to confess. There are thousands of ‘Padre Pio Prayer Groups’ around the world. Padre Pio was dogged during his life and even after his death by allegations that he was a fake but Church investigators cleared him each time…

“Pio of Pietrelcina, known as Padre Pio, was born in 1887 to deeply religious farmers in the small agricultural town of Pietrelcina, in Campania, Italy. By the age of five he knew he wanted to dedicate his life to serving God and claimed to have inner battles with demons and moments of religious out of body experiences…

“Since his death and burial in 1968 at his church in San Giovanni Rotondo, his popularity has grown and he is considered one of the Church’s most popular saints.”

We can say categorically and dogmatically, based on the Bible, that any “powers” Padre Pio might have had (if the accounts are true) would NOT have been given to him by God. The Holy Scriptures warn us not to be deceived by “lying wonders.”

Mexican Catholics Worship the Skeleton “Death Saint”

AFP wrote on February 8:

“Two weeks after baptizing her at a Catholic church, baby Adriana’s parents put her in a white gown again for a second sacrament: This time, with Mexico’s skeletal ‘Death Saint.’ As they held the sleepy three-month-old child, a priestess sprinkled holy water infused with rose petals on her in front of 300 people under a 22-meter (72-foot) statue of the Grim Reaper-like ‘Santa Muerte’ in a Mexico City suburb.

“When Pope Francis arrives in Mexico for a five-day visit on Friday, he will find a country where devotion to Santa Muerte is growing fast despite the Vatican’s rejection of the figure as blasphemous… But the Church is losing the battle against the Death Saint, which is famous for being worshipped by drug cartels but is followed by a wider sector of Mexican society, from the poor to blue-collar workers, police, doctors and teachers… Andrew Chesnut, professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, estimates that between 10 million and 12 million people follow Santa Muerte in Mexico, the United States and Central America…

“That leaves the Roman Catholic Church worried in Mexico. ‘This is the fastest-growing new religious movement not only in Mexico, but in the entire Americas,’ Chesnut… told AFP…”

German Catholic Church Advocates Reduction in Refugees

AFP wrote on February 6:

“The German Catholic Church called for a reduction in the influx of refugees arriving in Germany, saying the country cannot take in ‘all the world’s needy,’ according to an interview published Saturday. Germany has been struggling to cope with 1.1 million asylum seekers that arrived in 2015 and Berlin has not yet given an official estimate for how many it expects this year. ‘As a church we say that we need a reduction in the number of refugees,’ Cardinal Reinhard Marx, chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, told the Passauer Neue Presse daily…

“The question of how to respond to the migrant crisis, he asserted, should not solely be a matter of ‘charity but also reason.’ However, Marx also expressed concern at a rise in xenophobia in Germany amid the worst refugee crisis that Europe has known since World War II… ‘This ideology has evidently been further consolidated,’ he said, lamenting that the belittling of foreigners had ‘reached the upper classes.’

“Anti-Islamic group Pegida, which began as a movement in Germany in mid-2014 and has since spread to France and other European countries, called on members and sympathisers from across Europe to march Saturday under the anti-migrant banner of ‘Fortress Europe’.”

In Dresden, Germany, about 8,000 people participated in the Pegida demonstration.

Pope Very “Political Person”?

Newsmax reported on February 11:

“Donald Trump called Pope Francis ‘a very political person’ who doesn’t understand America’s immigration problem when asked on Thursday about the Pope’s plan to stand with migrants at the U.S.-Mexican border on Friday.

“‘I think he doesn’t understand the problems our country has,’ Trump told Fox Business Network’s ‘Varney & Co.’ ‘I don’t think he understands the danger of the open border that we have with Mexico, and I think Mexico got him to do it. Because Mexico wants to keep the border just the way it is because they are making a fortune and we are losing.’

“CBS News.com noted that Trump has had flattering things to say about Pope Francis in the past… But he also told CNN in August he would warn Francis about the danger of the Islamic State (ISIS) if he met him face-to-face. ‘You know that ISIS wants to go in and take over the Vatican?’ Trump said…”

Palace of Henry VIII Holds First Catholic Service in Nearly 500 Years

The New York Times wrote on February 9:

“Hampton Court Palace, where the Tudor king, Henry (VIII.), broke off ties with the papacy in 1530 just to divorce his first wife and marry his mistress — with whom he was besotted and whom he later beheaded — on Tuesday held its first Roman Catholic service in more than 450 years.

“During the service, held in the palace’s Chapel Royal, chants in Latin from an 18-person choir swelled up toward turquoise ceilings, adorned with golden stars and gilded cherubs. Around 350 attendees were packed into tiny wooden pews.

“A procession of altar boys and priests solemnly made its way toward the front of the chapel as the scent of incense wafted across the ancient hall. The Medieval Latin chants date to before the Protestant Reformation, when they were heard throughout churches in Europe.

“The service symbolized in part a growing reconciliation between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. Both are grappling with internal divisions, including a battle over homosexuality, and the service came as several high-profile figures, including some members of the royal family and former Prime Minister Tony Blair, have left the Anglican Church. (In 2011, a ban on a British monarch’s marrying a Roman Catholic was lifted after more than three centuries, but Roman Catholics are still barred from taking the throne.)…”

USA Wants to Fortify Europe

The New York Times wrote on February 1:

“President Obama plans to substantially increase the deployment of heavy weapons, armored vehicles and other equipment to NATO countries in Central and Eastern Europe, a move that administration officials said was aimed at deterring Russia from further aggression in the region. The White House plans to pay for the additional weapons and equipment with a budget request of more than $3.4 billion for military spending in Europe in 2017, several officials said Monday, more than quadrupling the current budget of $789 million. The weapons and equipment will be used by American and NATO forces, ensuring that the alliance can maintain a full armored combat brigade in the region at all times…

“It is not clear how Russia will react to the fortified military presence along NATO’s eastern flank… outside analysts were surprised by the magnitude of the increase in military funding for Europe… Some analysts said the increased funding and deployments would certainly rattle Russia…  there is no doubt the primary target of the funding is Russia. Administration officials said that two years after its annexation of Crimea— an annexation that neither the United States nor its European allies recognize — it was imperative to send Moscow a message that NATO will do all it needs to do in order to stand behind Eastern European members worried that they could be next.”

Ultimately, Europe will be able to use these weapons against the USA.

An Important Step in the Creation of a United European Army?

Deutsche Welle wrote on February 4:

“Berlin has signed a deal that will lead to further integration of German naval forces with the Dutch military. The move is being hailed as an important step in the creation of united European armed forces. While in Amsterdam, where she met with the Dutch Defense Minister, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, von der Leyen called the plan a ‘prime example for the building of a European defense union.’

“In exchange for the German battalion, which will be subordinate to the Dutch navy until 2018 and includes mine detectors, reconnaissance and commando units, Berlin will share the use of an ultramodern Dutch supply ship… The 205-meter (673-foot) ship, the ‘Karel Doorman,’ is equipped to carry Leopard 2 battle tanks.”

Die Welt stated that it will remain to be seen whether other European nations will join the German-Dutch efforts, and whether a “core European army” (“europaeische Kernarmee”) might be created as a consequence.

Iran Wants Euros, Not Dollars

Reuters reported on February 5:

“Iran wants to recover tens of billions of dollars it is owed by India and other buyers of its oil in euros and is billing new crude sales in euros, too, looking to reduce its dependence on the U.S. dollar following last month’s sanctions relief… Iran will charge in euros for its recently signed oil contracts with firms including French oil and gas major Total, Spanish refiner Cepsa and Litasco, the trading arm of Russia’s Lukoil…

“Switching oil sales to euros makes sense as Europe is now one of Iran’s biggest trading partners… Iran has pushed for years to have the euro replace the dollar as the currency for international oil trade…

“Iran has the world’s fourth-largest proved reserves of crude oil, and expects to quickly increase production, which could lead to tens of billions of euros worth of new oil trade. Iran’s insistence on being paid in euros rather than dollars is also a sign of an uneasy truce between Tehran and Washington…

“India owes Tehran about $6 billion for oil delivered during the sanctions years… Indian government sources confirmed Iran is looking to be paid in euros.”

It is interesting that Iran has strong confidence in the euro, while rejecting the US dollar. Even though some are uncertain on the issue, being tossed to and fro with every wind of speculation, we have clearly and consistently stated all along that the euro will survive and gain economic strength in the world.

EU President Slams Britain

Express wrote on February 5:

“BRUSSELS politicians believe Britain should be allowed to QUIT the EU rather than test their ‘patience and good will’ by demanding a renegotiation deal, the president of the European Parliament revealed today. Martin Schulz hit out at David Cameron’s ‘continuous demands’ for EU reform as he claimed many of his colleagues in Brussels had grown so fed up with Britain they believed the UK should be shown the exit door.

“The German politician also poured cold water over the Prime Minister’s hopes of achieving his renegotiation of Britain’s EU relationship, which the Government has promised before the upcoming in/out referendum of the UK’s membership of the 28-country bloc. He highlighted the Prime Minister’s plan for an ’emergency brake’ on EU migrants’ in-work benefits and greater protection for non-eurozone countries as sticking-points.  Mr Schulz also sparked a row with Downing Street by claiming Britain’s deal could be reversed at a later stage, despite Mr Cameron’s pledge to deliver ‘legally-binding and irreversible’ reforms.

“On Tuesday, European Council president Donald Tusk revealed the Prime Minister’s draft renegotiation agreement with other EU leaders, which will be voted on at a crunch summit later this month. Critics blasted the ‘watered-down’ reforms to Britain’s EU membership, which were also branded ‘pathetic’ and ‘hardly worth waiting for’. And Mr Schulz has now warned the Prime Minister he might struggle to get even his limited deal ratified by MEPs.

“Delivering a speech at the London School of Economics, the German politician revealed how fellow Brussels politicians had told him to let Britain leave the EU at the upcoming in/out referendum rather than bother with negotiating with Mr Cameron. But Mr Schulz insisted he was ‘a strong supporter of the UK remaining in the EU’. He added: ‘This is despite the fact – and I admit this quite frankly – that the British often test our patience and good will with their continuous demands. They are demanding. They push hard. They insist. They just don’t let go. Many of my colleagues say behind closed doors: “Don’t stop a rolling stone. If the Brits want to leave, let them leave.”’

“Mr Schulz said he wanted to ‘raise concerns’ with parts of Britain’s draft EU deal, warning the Prime Minister his European Parliament will ‘defend the fundamental principles and objectives of the EU’…

“Mr Schulz dismissed Mr Cameron’s call for the EU to be rebranded a ‘multi-currency union’, declaring: ‘The currency of the European Union is the Euro. The Treaties are very clear on this.’ Mr Schulz said the Prime Minister would not be given a ‘de facto veto’ on legislation to strengthen the eurozone… The European Parliament president also raised objections to Mr Cameron’s proposal for an ’emergency brake’, which would allow Britain to only pay limited benefits to EU migrants for their first four years in the UK. Describing how this could discriminate between EU citizens based on their nationality, he said: ‘Solutions cannot come at the price of discriminating against EU citizens…’

“The Prime Minister’s hopes of completing his draft EU deal in full were also doubted today by another influential Brussels politician. Ex-Belgium prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, who leads one of the largest groups in the European Parliament, warned Mr Cameron that MEPs could alter or even derail his proposals as they pass through the EU’s institutions…

“The Prime Minister also faced further dissent from within his own party, with Tory backbencher Stewart Jackson telling him there is ‘a sense of palpable disappointment’ with the results of his draft EU agreement. He told the BBC’s Daily Politics: ‘We believed he was going to make good on his pledges at the Bloomberg speech in 2013 for a radical renegotiation of our relationship with the EU and actually repatriating powers. But what we’ve seen, unfortunately, doesn’t stack up. We’ve seen also this week, effectively… that despite the best efforts of the Prime Minister the EU is set on ever-closer union and is fundamentally unreformable.’”

The Daily Mail added on February 5:

“[Mr Cameron asserted] that all changes will be ‘legally binding and irreversible’ if his reform package is agreed at a European Council summit later this month and speaking this afternoon he hit straight back at Mr Schulz’s claims. ‘If it is agreed it will be agreed as a legally binding treaty deposited at the United Nations,’ he said at a press conference in Copenhagen this afternoon. It would only be reversible if all 28 countries including Britain agreed to reverse it. Given that it’s the treaty that Britain wants, there is no way we are going to agree to reverse it. So while you can argue that it is technically reversible if we agree to reverse it, it is not in fact reversible.’ …

“Cameron kick-started a two-week charm offensive to persuade EU leaders to agree to the draft EU deal he unveiled earlier this week. He hopes his fellow 27 EU leaders will agree to his renegotiation deal at a crunch summit on February 18. Cameron won the backing of Danish prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen today, who hailed Britain as a voice of ‘common sense’… [Other reports suggest that he also won the support of Poland.]

“But he was dealt a blow this morning after a poll put the campaign for Britain to leave the EU nine-points ahead in the first survey of public opinion since he unveiled his deal on Tuesday. The record lead for the Brexit campaign suggests voters have overwhelmingly rejected the Prime Minister’s plans for an emergency brake for EU migrants’ access to benefits and a ‘red card’ for national parliaments to veto EU laws.

“The first survey of public opinion since Tuesday’s deal found 45 per cent of voters will opt to quit the EU, while just 36 per cent want to remain. But crucially, one in five voters have yet to decide which way they will vote…

“Banking giant Goldman Sachs has warned that Brexit could cause an immediate 20 per cent drop in the value of the pound… The US investment bank, which is a financial backer of the Britain Stronger In Europe campaign, has predicted voters will opt for staying in the EU.”

The Times added on February 6:

“The tycoon [and multimillionaire, who made his fortune from insurance and] who is Ukip’s biggest donor says the party [The UK Independence Party or UKIP is a Eurosceptic and right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom, according to Wikipedia] may have to be disbanded or rebranded after the expected June referendum on Britain in Europe. ‘I’ve got a weird feeling that British politics will be realigned after the referendum … Something’s got to give,’ said Arron Banks. ‘I don’t think Ukip necessarily is the right vehicle, but I think strange things will come out of the referendum. It unleashes strange forces that I don’t think anyone really understands yet.’”

This wording is interesting. When the Berlin Wall fell, observers used the same expressions of “strange forces beyond our control,” as being behind the events. The expression was also used to describe Hitler’s rise and fall.

The Times also reported on February 6 that in regard to conservative voters, “A YouGov poll for The Times found that only 32 per cent of Tories said that they would vote to remain, while 47 per cent would vote to leave, and 21 per cent had not made up their mind.”

It is clear from the Bible that the UK will leave the EU in due time. It is interesting that this step, even though it might be felt necessary by the British people, will contribute to the economic and political demise of the UK, as it is prophesied to occur in Scripture.

EU Committed to Ever Closer Union

The Guardian wrote on February 10:

“Now top EU members including France and Germany say they support an ‘ever closer union’.

“David Cameron’s bid to shake up Britain’s role in the European Union could be in tatters…  Founding members Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg confirmed their ‘strong commitment’ to the so-called European project yesterday. The country’s foreign ministers released a joint statement ahead of a long awaited summit in Brussels next week… Backing a key pledge in the founding Treaty of Rome, the officials said: ‘We remain resolved to continue the process of creating an ever closer union among the people of Europe.'”

China Buys Chicago Stock Exchange

CNN wrote on February 5:

“One of America’s oldest stock exchanges has just been sold to China. The 134-year-old Chicago Stock Exchange reached a deal on Friday to be acquired by a Chinese-led group of investors. The purchase by Chongqing Casin Enterprise Group is the latest U.S. investment made by China and would give the country a foothold in the vast American stock market.

“The struggling Chicago Stock Exchange is a very small player in the exchange world whose presence is overshadowed by Nasdaq… As of January, the Chicago Stock Exchange handled just 0.5% of U.S. trading, making it the third-smallest U.S. exchange…

“It’s not clear yet if the acquisition of the tiny Chicago Stock Exchange will face any political hurdles…

“China has been on a buying spree this year. Its largest deal was a $43 billion takeover of Swiss chemicals giant Sygenta earlier this week. So far in 2016, Chinese companies have announced plans to buy 66 foreign companies worth $68 billion…

“Sayena Mostowfi, head of equities research at TABB, said the Chicago Stock Exchange deal represents a vote of confidence in the U.S. stock market. ‘We have one of the most liquid and efficient stock markets in the world. People are looking at us as a model they want to be part of and invest in,’ she said.”

How Would Trump Wipe Out the National Debt?

Breitbart wrote on February 5:

“GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump proposed tackling the national debt by… creating a ‘dynamic economy’ on Friday’s ‘O’Reilly Factor’ on the Fox News Channel…

“Trump was then questioned on how he would bring down the national debt. He responded, ‘We have a country with no growth. We have no growth.’ He later added, after host Bill O’Reilly cut in to ask how this [would] bring down the debt, ‘[W]e’re going to create a dynamic economy again. We’re going to bring the jobs back from China, from Mexico, from Japan.’

“O’Reilly again asked how this would bring down the debt, to which Trump answered, ‘Because the country is going to start growing, and we’ll be up to 4 and even 5%, and when we do that, we pay it back so easily. It’s easy to pay it back.’

“O’Reilly then asked Trump how it would be easy. Trump stated, ‘Because essentially, if you look at the country like a profit-making corporation, or a losing corporation, right now we’re a losing corporation. We’re going to make it a profit-making corporation.’

“O’Reilly then said, ‘OK, but then you’re going to have to raise taxes to get more money in to pay down that debt.’ Trump responded, ‘The problem we have is our taxes are so high, that nobody can — everybody’s choking.’

“O’Reilly then asked how even with more economic growth, he would pay down trillions of dollars in debt. Trump said, ‘[L]isten, the politicians have caused this problem. We’re going to make our country dynamic again. Now, companies, big companies like Pfizer, are leaving. they’re going to make it worse. They’re leaving. Many — it’s called corporate inversion. Many companies are leaving because the taxes are so high. We have to lower taxes, not raise taxes.’

“He added, ‘[T]he country will be more dynamic. It’ll be a dynamic — we are going to create a dynamic economy, where real jobs are going to be pouring into the country, and we’ll have a country that’s sustainable. It’ll work, Bill.’”

It is obvious that Trump avoided answering O’Reilly’s repeated question as to how he will deal with the national debt. Creating a dynamic economy and lowering (!) taxes will not help paying down the debt. As a successful business man, Trump must know that. Assuming he is not just all talk, he must have a plan to deal with the national debt, but he may be unwilling to state what he wants to do. He said on different occasions that he does not want to be like President Obama in placing all his cards on the table and informing the enemy about his next steps.

So, looking at history, COULD IT BE that Trump has something totally different in mind?

For instance, on January 8, 1835, President Andrew Jackson had paid off the national debt. He had taken advantage of a huge real-estate bubble that was raging in the Western U.S. The federal government owned a lot of Western land — and Jackson started selling it off. He had also blocked every spending bill he could. When Jackson took office, the national debt was about $58 million. Six years later, it was all gone.

Let’s look how Germany did it after World War I.

The Treaty of Versailles required Germany to pay 132 billion gold marks (US$33 billion) in reparations to cover civilian damage caused during the war. Because of the lack of reparation payments by Germany, France occupied the Ruhr in 1923 to enforce payments, causing an international crisis that resulted in the implementation of the Dawes Plan in 1924. This plan outlined a new payment method and raised international loans to help Germany meet her reparation commitments. Despite this, by 1928 Germany called for a new payment plan, resulting in the Young Plan that established the German reparation requirements at 112 billion marks (US$26.3 billion) and created a schedule of payments that would see Germany complete payments by 1988.

Despite the reduction, there was increasing German hostility to the plan. In December 1929, 5.8 million voters registered their opposition to the plan during a plebiscite, which resulted in Adolf Hitler gaining significant national attention and valuable right-wing financing. In 1933, the new German Chancellor Adolf Hitler cancelled all payments.

We do not say that something like this will occur, or is even contemplated. But just imagine what would happen if the USA would decide to wipe out its national debt (including American debt towards China) and just cancel all payments.

New US Policy For Illegal Aliens—Abolishing Immigration Law?

The Washington Examiner wrote on February 4:

“In a shocking reversal of policy, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are being told to release illegal immigrants and no longer order them to appear at deportation hearings, essentially a license to stay in the United States, a key agent testified Thursday. What’s more, the stand down order includes a requirement that the whereabouts of illegals released are not to be tracked. ‘We might as well abolish our immigration laws altogether,’ suggested agent Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council… Judd said the policy shift was prompted by Obama administration ‘embarrassment’ that just over half of illegals ordered to appear in court actually do…

“[Judd] said the new policy ‘makes mandatory the release, without an NTA, of any person arrested by the Border Patrol for being in the country illegally, as long as they do not have a previous felony arrest conviction and as long as they claim to have been continuously in the United States since January of 2014. The operative word in this policy is “claim.” The policy does not require the person to prove they have been here which is the same burden placed on them during deportation proceedings. Instead, it simply requires them to claim to have been here since January of 2014’…

“The go free policy, he said, has prompted thousands of Latinos to cross the border, and among them are hundreds of criminal foot soldiers, according to other testimony. ‘Immigration laws today appear to be mere suggestions. There are little or no consequences for breaking the laws and that fact is well known in other countries. If government agencies like DHS or CBP are allowed to bypass Congress by legislating through policy, we might as well abolish our immigration laws altogether,’ Judd concluded.”

American citizens can clearly see the incredible lack of responsibility of their leadership, which explains the unparalleled success of outsiders in the current presidential election process.

“Political Correctness” in Sweden—Don’t Offend Aliens

Breitbart wrote on February 4:

“The municipal government in the Swedish town where an asylum centre worker was stabbed to death refuses to allow a memorial at the centre for fear of offending migrants. Swedish media SVT reports that the co-workers of the victim wished to honour the memory of 22-year-old Alexandra Mezher… who was stabbed to death by an underage Somali male on the 25th of January. The case provoked an international uproar which has led many to question the Swedish government’s handling of the migrant crisis…

“Carl Lindahl, who has worked at a similar asylum centre for over three years… along with another colleague, wished to organize a small rally or march in the town to express mourning for Ms. Mezher but were shocked to learn that the municipality not only refused to fly their flag at half mast but also denied them use of any municipal premises…

“Locals asked why the municipality was against the demonstration and a representative reached out to SVT and told them the municipality was worried about offending the migrants at the asylum centre… The story of the murder has resonated across Sweden and with the Swedish people. Inspired to take action because of the events, Swedish men joined together to form groups to protect women in Stockholm train station from unwanted sexual advances from migrants.

“Some, like commentator Pamela Geller, are even saying the incident could be the beginning of the end of Swedish tolerance and that a potential ‘civil war’ could ensue. The story also revealed to Swedes how they might not be even getting the full story on the case as Breitbart revealed the Daily Mail was blocking details of the story to Swedish internet users in what some allege to be interference from Stockholm.”

BBC Muzzles Journalists; Caters to Muslims

Breitbart reported on February 5:

“Journalists at the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) should refer to the Islamic prophet, Mohammed, as ‘the Prophet’, according to the corporation’s in-house style guide.

“Under the section labelled ‘Muhammad’, the guide says: ‘For the founder of Islam, our style is the Prophet Muhammad; at second reference Muhammad or the Prophet.’ This advice is repeated in the sections on ‘Arabic names’ and ‘Islam’.

“The assertion that Mohammed is ‘the Prophet’, with a capital P, will likely cause controversy. While followers of Islam believe him to be the last prophet sent by God – Christians, Jews, atheists and followers of other religions do not regard him as a prophet at all. There are also questions over whether Mohammed and Islam are being given special treatment in the style guide, which does not tell journalists how to refer to significant figures from other religions.

“It does not, for example, tell staff to refer to Jesus as ‘Son of God’, ‘Our Lord’ or ‘The Messiah’, nor does it say to call the Buddha by any of his Ten Titles, or offer any advice on how to refer to holy figures from Hinduism or Sikhism…

“This is not the first controversy the BBC has found itself in over the subject of Islam. In November, it used the words ‘hateful’, ‘Islamophobic’ and ‘bad timing’ to describe a hashtag used by atheist ex-Muslims to explain why they left the faith.

“… the BBC’s style guide also tells journalists to avoid using the term ‘pro-life’ to refer to campaigners against abortion, but encouraged the use of ‘pro-choice’ to refer to their opponents. Pro-life campaigners called it ‘an utterly shameless example of institutional bias against the right-to-life movement, and for the abortion lobby.’”

ISIS Fighters in Europe

CNN wrote on February 8:

“Intelligence obtained by Western security agencies before the November 13 Paris attacks indicated as many as 60 ISIS fighters had been deployed by the group to Europe to carry out attacks on five cities and had already reached European soil…

“In the months since the Paris attack there have been several terrorism alerts in Europe based on intelligence chatter, in cities including Brussels, Belgium; Hanover, Germany; Geneva, Switzerland; Vienna, Austria; and Munich, Germany.

“Last week, a U.S official told CNN’s Barbara Starr that the terrorist threat to Europe is as high as it’s ever been, with about 1,900 extremists who went from Europe to Iraq and Syria to fight jihad now back on European soil. A U.S. intelligence official told CNN that France and Belgium were the countries considered to be at highest risk of terrorist attack, while Germany and the UK also face a heightened terror threat…”

“North Korea Fires Long-Range Missile Designed to Hit US”

Bloomberg wrote on February 7:

“North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Sunday carrying what it called a satellite, but its neighbours and the United States denounced the launch as a missile test, conducted in defiance of U.N. sanctions and just weeks after a nuclear bomb test… The launch prompted South Korea and the United States to announce that they would explore the feasibility of deploying an advanced missile defence system in South Korea, which China and Russia both oppose, ‘at the earliest possible date.’..

“South Korea’s military said it would make annual military exercises with U.S. forces ‘the most cutting-edge and the biggest’ this year. North Korea objects to the drills as a prelude to war by a United States it says is bent on toppling the Pyongyang regime. The United States has about 28,500 troops in South Korea…”

“Ambitious” Agreement for Syria 

Deutsche Welle reported on February 11:

“In an agreement that Kerry described as ‘ambitious,’ the United States and Russia alongside more than a dozen other world powers agreed to a ‘cessation of hostilities’ within a week and the acceleration and expansion of humanitarian aid to areas besieged by both regime and rebel forces…

“Despite an apparent agreement between Russia and the United States, questions remain over implementation and timing of Friday’s deal…

“[Russia’s] Lavrov said… a broad spectrum of Syrian opposition should attend talks… Russia and Syria have also had issue with the presence of some Saudi Arabia and Turkey backed rebel groups, which they describe as terrorists…

“Lavrov said Russia’s air campaign in support of [the] regime would continue against terrorist groups.

“Present at the Munich talks, German Foreign Minister Frank Walter Steinmeier said the true test of the deal to end violence in Syria would come over the next few days…”

Franklin Graham Blasts Gender Identity Protection

Newsmax wrote on February 6:

“Evangelical preacher Franklin Graham is blasting a proposed Charlotte, N.C., non-discrimination law that’ll include ‘gender identity’ protection, charging the statute is ‘dangerous’ and that similar laws are being turned against Christians… the son of famed preacher Billy Graham rips the revival a defeated non-discrimination ordinance to allow transgender men and women to use the restroom of their choice in Charlotte…

“‘Each section of the proposed ordinance has wording to include “gender identity” … what an individual “feels” their gender is regardless of the biological reality… Where sexual orientation and gender identity laws such as this have passed in other places, florists, bakers, photographers, adoption agencies, and t-shirt printers have been punished by the government for not wanting to use their artistic talents to celebrate and participate in same-sex weddings, not wanting to promote the LGBT messaging in Gay Pride events, or for not wanting to place an adoptive child with two men.’”

The Crazy Fairy Tales of Paid Scientists

Huffington Post wrote on February 3:

“The giant impact hypothesis — the popular belief that a ‘planetary embryo’ called Theia collided with Earth some 4.5 billion years ago, leading to the formation of our planet’s moon — has been around for a while. But a NASA-funded research team has added an amazing new twist to the idea; that Earth wasn’t just sideswiped by Theia, as many have conjectured, but sustained a direct hit and actually absorbed a large portion of the rogue planet.

“In other words, Earth is made up of two fused planets — Earth and Theia — the study suggests. ‘Theia was thoroughly mixed into both the Earth and the moon, and evenly dispersed between them,’ lead author Edward Young, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a statement…

“For their study, the UCLA-led team compared the chemical signatures of moon rocks with volcanic rocks from Hawaii and Arizona. If Earth and Theia had collided in a glancing side blow, as the giant impact hypothesis suggests, the moon would be mostly made up of Theia, and the Earth and moon would have different chemical structures, UCLA said in its statement.  But that’s not what the researchers found. ‘We don’t see any difference between the Earth’s and the moon’s oxygen isotopes; they’re indistinguishable,’ Young said. That suggests the two collided head-on, with Theia becoming large parts Earth and moon, researchers said.

“And just like that, Mother Earth became Mothers Earth.”

What this new study “suggests” is that the giant impact hypothesis is a foolish fairy tale.  God CREATED the heavens and the earth. The concept that a planetary embryo called Theia collided with earth and that somehow this created the moon is utter and complete nonsense.

More Scientific Abominable Craziness – Single Embryo from Three Different People

NBC News reported on February 4:

“Experiments using sperm and egg cells from three different people to make a single embryo are all right — if they are carefully monitored and regulated, expert advisers said Wednesday. Such ‘three-parent’ babies could be a way for people with a high risk of rare, devastating genetic diseases to have healthy children that are genetically their own, the National Academy of Medicine panel said… And at first, the panel advised, only male embryos should be made this way until it’s clear that dangerous mutations would not be passed down to future generations…

“But there are tricky scientific and ethical questions. Such babies could have what are known as germline changes, which can be passed down from generation to generation, making a lab mistake potentially the problem of people born decades later. Then there’s the issue of ‘playing God’, the panel noted. ‘These concerns warrant significant caution and the imposition of restrictions rather than a blanket prohibition on the use of MRT [mitochondrial replacement techniques],’ they concluded…

“The conditions include tests to establish safety, first using animals and then embryos that could never grow into babies, and that the disease being prevented is severe and that only male embryos are used… Britain approved the technique last year…

“[The panel wrote:] ‘While the creation of human embryos for research is not prohibited under federal law in the United States (although some states are more restrictive), neither FDA nor any other agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services can financially support such research where embryos are destroyed, discarded, or subjected to risks with no prospect of medical benefit for the embryo.’”

All of this sounds like a bad story from a science fiction book. But the creation and destruction of embryos for scientific purposes and the “greater good” is very real.

Hawaii Kills Mandatory Vaccination Bill

Daily Mail wrote on February 5:

“After listening to Hawaii residents speak out against vaccines and saying they cause everything from autism to the Zika virus, Hawaii lawmakers killed a bill to speed up the state’s process for adopting federal vaccination guidelines. The bill would have allowed the state Health Department to more easily adopt the federal rules, which some opponents of the measure fear would result in more vaccinations…

“Supporters of the bill say it would have helped the Hawaii Department of Health address public health crises quickly. They said given the potential for diseases to spread rapidly, it’s important to be able to adopt vaccination rules swiftly. Opponents of the bill spoke out against mandatory vaccinations, saying their side effects are harmful and the people should have the right to make their own health decisions…

“Vaccinations are a hot-button issue across the nation. For decades, critics have said vaccines can cause debilitating side effects — most notably autism… Almost all states grant religious exemptions for people who have religious beliefs against vaccinations, while 20 states allow exemptions for personal or moral beliefs, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.”

Sadly, left-liberal California does not even grant religious exemptions. California, under controversial governor Brown, should learn from Hawaii and revoke and repeal its foolish mandatory vaccination law.

An Interesting Tour Through the Kidron Valley

Times of Israel wrote on February 6:

“In 1952, a unique 2,000-year-old copper scroll was discovered deep inside a cave near the Dead Sea. When British scholar John Marco Allegro translated the scroll a few years later, he was astonished to learn that over 100 tons of gold and silver treasures from the Second Temple had been hidden in dozens of different locations. One such location, he believed, was the area surrounding the alleged Tomb of the prophet Zechariah in the Kidron Valley beneath Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives.

“A few years later, Allegro led an expedition to the Kidron Valley – at the time under Jordanian control – in an attempt to recover hidden treasure. Financing the expedition was no problem, for it was to take place under the auspices of Britain’s Daily Mail tabloid newspaper and Jordan provided workers and transportation. There was just one hitch: dozens of Jews were buried around the tomb. The problem was solved when the Kingdom of Jordan granted Allegro permission to clear away the grave… he didn’t uncover even a single treasure…

“The Bible tells us that during his lifetime Absalom, King David’s third son, ‘had taken a pillar and erected it in the King’s Valley as a monument to himself… He named the pillar after himself, and it is called Absalom’s Monument to this day.’ [2 Samuel 18:18]. Despite that fact that the shrine dates back to the end of the Second Temple period — nearly a millennia after Absalom rebelled against his father and was run through with a javelin by the King’s captain – tradition places that monument here, identifying the Kidron Valley with the King’s Valley.

“In earlier centuries, passersby of all religions would throw stones at Absalom’s mammoth structure. Indeed Muslims, who revere King David, almost covered it with rocks. It is said that Jewish parents would bring disobedient offspring to the almost hidden monument, point out the stones, and warn them that ‘this is what happens to children who behave badly to their fathers.’

“Iron bars block the entrance to a structure on one side of Absalom’s Tomb. Uncovered in 1924, and thought by some to be the tomb of 9th-century B.C.E. King Jehoshaphat, it contains several chambers and a splendidly ornamental lintel. The prophet Zechariah’s Tomb on the other side of Absalom’s Tomb is the only pyramid-topped structure in the valley… Over 10 meters high, it dates, like Absalom’s Pillar, to the Second Temple period… Jews so revered Zechariah that over the centuries they asked to be buried as close as possible to his grave. At one time the Jews of Jerusalem offered eulogies here and would come to Zechariah’s Tomb to mourn the destruction of the Temple on the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av.

“One year Jerusalem suffered from a terrible drought. Legend has it that the city’s Arabs prayed to Allah, but rain didn’t fall. They then sent a delegation to Jerusalem’s Jewish inhabitants, warning them that if they couldn’t make it rain, they would be in deep, deep trouble. According to this oft-repeated story, the Jews immediately declared a fast and on its third day made a pilgrimage to the tomb of Zechariah. Throwing themselves upon the ground next to the tomb they prayed, then walked around it seven times while singing psalms. By evening the sky was black. Heavy rain, accompanied by thunder and lightning, fell on the Holy City. The Jews were saved, the city’s cisterns filled with water, and the sanctity of Zechariah’s Tomb was reaffirmed…

“Only a few meters from Zechariah’s Tomb, a gate leads into a large burial complex featuring several interior chambers. A barely legible ancient Hebrew inscription, found on the exterior of the complex, relates that the six sons of the priestly Hezir family are buried within… one of the Dead Sea Scrolls mentions that the Hezirs operated the Temple on Yom Kippur.”

The Kidron Valley is highly significant in biblical prophecy. In the future, “kings of the east” and other powers of this earth will assemble at a place called Armageddon or “hill of Megiddo,” which is about 55 miles north of Jerusalem. From there, they will move towards Jerusalem, where they, together with European powers under a charismatic military leader (“the beast”), will try to fight the returning Jesus Christ. That “battle” will take place in the Kidron Valley.

Zechariah 14:3–5 indicates that, apparently due to the great earthquake of the seventh bowl, mentioned in Revelation 16:17–18, the Mount of Olives shall split in two, making a very large valley, where the final battle of God Almighty will take place.

Revelation 14:19-20 informs us in regard to that “battle” in the valley of Jehoshaphat or the Kidron Valley, that the “great winepress of the wrath of God… was trampled outside the city [of Jerusalem], and blood came out of the winepress, up to the horses’ bridles, for one thousand six hundred furlongs [lit. stadia, about 184 miles in all].”

WARNING! Is the DRAFT Coming for BOTH Men AND Women?

NBC News reported on February 2:

“Now that all combat jobs are open to women, the top Army and Marine Corps officers say they should have to register for the draft — just like men. Gen. Mark A. Milley, chief of staff of the Army, and Gen. Robert B. Neller, the Marine Corps commandant said they supported the requirement during testimony at a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

“‘Senator, it’s my personal view that, based on this lifting of restrictions … every American who’s physically qualified should register for the draft,’ Neller said in response to a question from Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, who favors the change. Milley also agreed. ‘Senator, I think that all eligible and qualified men and women should register for the draft,’ he said.

“Right now only men legally residing the U.S. between the ages of 18 and 26 are required to register with the Selective Service. The two thumbs up from the generals came a month after Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced the Pentagon’s historic shift in policy. Under the new rules, women will now be able to help fill some of the 220,000 jobs that were only open to their male counterparts, including key posts in some special operations units and the infantry…

“Conscripts have not been drafted since 1973 when the U.S. moved to an all-volunteer military. But in 1980 then President Jimmy Carter reinstated the requirement that men register in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.”

War hawks are pushing for the draft. Men and women who are conscientiously opposed to serving in the military must be prepared for the distinct possibility that the war hawks will have it their way in the future. 

Clinton and Cruz Win Iowa Caucus

In absolutely stunning and historic developments, Hillary Clinton emerged as the “winner” in the Iowa caucus on the Democratic side, beating Bernie Sanders through the tossing of a coin, while Ted Cruz surprisingly won against Donald Trump on the Republican side.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders virtually tied, which all by itself means an embarrassing defeat for Clinton.

Deutsche Welle reported on February 2 that “The Iowa Democratic Party said in a statement the caucus was the closest in history, with some precincts reportedly having to resort to a rarely used rule to flip a coin to decide the winner. Clinton reportedly won all three of the coin tosses… The next round is in New Hampshire on February 9, where Clinton is trailing Sanders in the polls…

“On the Republican side, conservative Texas senator Ted Cruz came in ahead of both billionaire Donald Trump and Florida Senator Marco Rubio who is the favorite of mainstream Republican voters. The result was a blow to the controversial Trump who had headed the polls leading into the Iowa caucus.

“But the next round is in New Hampshire where more than 40 percent of the state’s electorate are not registered in any political party. Washington outsider Trump has a commanding lead in New Hampshire and in national polls.”

It is critically important for Trump to win in New Hampshire. Statistics reveal that since 1980, no Republican candidate received the nomination who did not win either in Iowa or in New Hampshire. For the Democrats, the same is true with one exception—in 1992, Bill Clinton won the Democratic nomination and the Presidency, even though he did not win in Iowa or in New Hampshire.

Following the next round in New Hampshire on February 9, “Super Tuesday” occurs on March 1 (when preliminary elections take place in more than 10 states), followed by “Super Tuesday, Part 2” on March 15 (when preliminary elections take place in five states, including Florida, Illinois and Ohio).

The Republicans will then meet and decide on their nominee for the Presidency on July 18-21, and the Democrats on July 25-28.

The first televised debate between the Democratic and Republican nominees will take place on September 26, followed by two more debates on October 9 and October 19 (A televised debate between the two nominees for the office of Vice-President will take place on October 4).

The main election for the Presidency will take place on November 8, and on January 20, 2017, the new US President will be sworn in.

Dirty Tricks in Politics

Newsmax wrote on February 3:

“Donald Trump says Ted Cruz ‘stole’ the Iowa caucuses and is guilty of ‘fraud’ for falsely telling voters going to the polls that Ben Carson had dropped out [of] the presidential race and to support him instead. And the Texas senator’s ‘fraud’ is so serious that Iowa state officials should void the caucus results and hold a new vote, the billionaire developer believes…

“Cruz on Tuesday admitted his campaign wrongly stated the retired pediatric neurosurgeon had exited the race as the caucuses got underway and apologized for the gaff. Carson accepted the apology, but added that someone on Cruz’s staff should pay for the action. Trump, who has been the Republican presidential front-runner for seven months, believes the bogus claim by the campaigners for Cruz, who had trailed Trump in the polls, unfairly helped him win.

“He is also crying foul at the Cruz campaign’s scary-looking ‘voting violation’ notice sent to Iowans… Iowa’s secretary of state says the mailer misrepresents election law. But Cruz called it a ‘routine’ campaign move.”

On February 3, the Drudge Report added the following Facebook post by former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, who is endorsing Donald Trump (but she had endorsed Ted Cruz for Senator in the past):

“… Cruz’s campaign chairman, U.S. Representative Steve King, is lying, and good for Dr. Ben Carson for calling this out. King, who’s previously asked for and received my endorsement, time and resources to support his own election, is still lying about my altruistic support of Mr. Trump, and he’s refused to provide any evidence to the contrary. And, this U.S. Congressman actually lied to his own constituents on behalf of Cruz, regarding a good man, Dr. Carson. He told voters Carson was dropping out of the Presidential race immediately before the Iowa caucus, causing a relative uproar inside the process, so the word would spread and he could rack up more votes for his candidate, Cruz. That’s a dirty trick. Dr. Carson deserved better. The voters deserved better!

“Where is the accountability for these political actions? Very sad; typical Washington tactics. THIS is why ‘the status quo has got to go.’ Our friend Dr. Carson put it so well: ‘As Christians, of course we accept people’s apologies, we also have to ask ourselves is this acceptable to us, the American people, or should there be some accountability? There should be some consequences for things. You don’t just say “oh, okay, sorry… okay let’s move on.” The damage was done to me, it wasn’t done to them.’

“We’ve had eight years of a reckless President, accountable to no one, pushing this country to the brink. Why would we ever take a risk repeating that? We are never going to turn this country around if we keep electing ‘more of the same.’…  The Cruz Campaign’s actions to destroy a good man’s efforts to serve are no different than Obama’s practice of not holding anyone accountable. Typical politics. Typical politicians.”

Trump like Hitler or Worthy of Nobel Prize?

JTA wrote on January 28:

“The stepsister of Holocaust teen diarist Anne Frank compared Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump to Hitler. Eva Schloss, 86, made the comparison in an essay in Newsweek magazine published Wednesday in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. ‘If Donald Trump become(s) the next president of the U.S., it would be a complete disaster,’ she wrote. ‘I think he is acting like another Hitler by inciting racism.’…

“Schloss, who survived Auschwitz, was 11 years old when her family left Nazi-annexed Austria in 1938 for Belgium. ‘We were treated as if we had come from the moon. I felt as if I wasn’t wanted and that I was different to everybody,’ she wrote… ‘Fewer people would have died in the Holocaust if the world had accepted more Jewish refugees.’’

Yahoo News reported on February 2:

“Donald Trump, Greek islanders helping desperate migrants, Angela Merkel and the pope — some may seem more likely than others but all are understood to be in the running for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize…

“According to a copy of the nomination letter Harpviken said he had received, brash tycoon Trump — who has attracted international condemnation by calling for a ban on Muslims entering the United States — deserves the prize for ‘his vigorous peace through strength ideology, used as a threat weapon of deterrence against radical Islam, ISIS, nuclear Iran and Communist China.’”

Hillary Clinton’s Growing Email Scandal … “The State Department Is Lying”

The New York Post wrote on January 31:

“The State Department is lying when it says it didn’t know until it was too late that Hillary Clinton was improperly using personal e-mails and a private server to conduct official business — because it never set up an agency e-mail address for her in the first place, the department’s former top watchdog says. ‘This was all planned in advance’ to skirt rules governing federal records management, said Howard J. Krongard, who served as the agency’s inspector general from 2005 to 2008.

“The Harvard-educated lawyer points out that, from Day One, Clinton was never assigned and never used a state.gov e-mail address like previous secretaries. ‘That’s a change in the standard. It tells me that this was premeditated. And this eliminates claims by the State Department that they were unaware of her private e-mail server until later,’ Krongard said in an exclusive interview… He also points to the unusual absence of a permanent inspector general during Clinton’s entire 2009-2013 term at the department. He said the 5¹/₂-year vacancy was unprecedented. ‘This is a major gap. In fact, it’s without precedent,’ he said. ‘It’s the longest period any department has gone without an IG.’

“Inspectors general serve an essential and unique role in the federal government by independently investigating agency waste, fraud and abuse. Their oversight also covers violations of communications security procedures. ‘It’s clear she did not want to be subject to internal investigations,’ Krongard said. An e-mail audit would have easily uncovered the secret information flowing from classified government networks to the private unprotected system she set up in her New York home.”

Newsmax added on January 31:

“‘The starting point of the investigation is the material going through SIPRNet, [State’s classified system.] She couldn’t function without the information coming over SIPRNet,’ [Krongard] said. ‘How did she get it on her home server? It can’t just jump from one system to the other. Someone had to move it, copy it. The question is who did that?’”

The Associated Press wrote on January 30:

“The Obama administration has confirmed for the first time that Hillary Clinton’s home server contained closely guarded government secrets, censoring 22 emails that contained material requiring one of the highest levels of classification… The Associated Press learned ahead of the release that seven email chains would be withheld in full for containing ‘top secret’ information. The 37 pages include messages a key intelligence official recently said concerned ‘special access programs’ —highly restricted, classified material that could point to confidential sources or clandestine programs like drone strikes…”

President Obama Visits Controversial US Mosque

The Washington Post wrote on January 30:

“President Obama will make the first visit during his presidency to a U.S. mosque, the White House announced Saturday, part of the administration’s push to promote religious tolerance at a time when rhetoric linking Islam with terrorism is growing. On Wednesday, the president will visit the Islamic Society of Baltimore… It is one of the Mid-Atlantic region’s largest Muslim centers…

“The president is making the visit ‘to celebrate the contributions Muslim Americans make to our nation and reaffirm the importance of religious freedom to our way of life,’  a White House official wrote in an email Saturday…

“The visit will be part of the tightrope-walking Obama has done during his presidency around Islam.

“For years, Muslim Americans have lobbied him to visit a mosque, citing Islamophobia. At the same time, a segment of Obama’s critics have said since he took office that he is a Muslim pretending to be Christian, and that he plays down the religious aspect of Muslim extremism. Recent polls show that 29 percent of Americans and nearly 45 percent of Republicans think he is a Muslim. The visit comes in the last year of his presidency…

“Presidents rarely visit houses of worship, aside from when they have attended church for their own religious practices. Obama… attends religious services on key holidays. In May, he visited a synagogue for the first time as president…

“The official added that the event [is] coming just days after Obama spoke out against anti-Semitism and right before his appearance at the National Prayer breakfast…

“One close watcher of the role of religion in presidential politics said the timing of events next week was not a coincidence and that the mosque visit would be a stark contrast with the anti-Muslim rhetoric coming from multiple leading GOP candidates.

“It was not immediately clear why the White House selected the Islamic Society in Baltimore, although it has been the subject of threats in recent months… It also is the mosque of the family of Adnan Syed, whose conviction for murder drew huge global interest… Obama has visited several mosques overseas but never one in this country while serving as president…

“Obama’s relationship with American Muslims has been complicated. They are among his most enthusiastic backers, but some feel he has not done enough to address their concerns at a time of social unrest. He has shown support for Muslims overseas, including the 2009 ‘New Beginning’ speech in Cairo before the Arab Spring, and he has drawn praise — and intense criticism from conservatives — for declining to connect Islam and terrorism…”

President Obama still refuses to this day to state members of ISIS are radical Islamists.

European Armies Growing… Security Spending a Priority

The New York Times wrote on January 31:

“A phalanx of soldiers wearing bulletproof vests and wielding machine guns fanned out beneath the Eiffel Tower on a recent afternoon, scanning the crowd for potential terrorist threats. Across the country, nearly 10,000 more armed troops patrolled streets around landmarks, stores and government buildings. France is spending nearly 1 million euros a day on the heightened security, part of a renewed surge in European military spending as governments declare terrorism a permanent risk…

“European leaders are acknowledging that security spending is a priority… France, Germany, Britain and neighboring countries sharply curbed military outlays while austerity was enforced. Since 2007, Western European military spending has slumped more than 13 percent, accelerating a decline that began earlier in the decade… As security concerns intensify, the trend is reversing.

“Germany is hiring more police and intelligence officers, and in January the defense minister proposed increasing military spending by €130 billion over 15 years… France is expanding its military equipment arsenal, troops and police, as well as increasing surveillance and spending hundreds of millions of euros on new programs to counter radicalization among Muslim youth.

“In Belgium, where militants planned the Paris attacks after training in Syria, nearly half a billion euros will be spent jailing returning jihadists, reinforcing borders and keeping hundreds of troops on the streets. And Britain recently authorized 12 billion pounds in new spending to purchase Boeing P8 maritime patrol aircraft, increase fighter squadron numbers and create new strike brigades…

“Total Western European military spending, led by France, Britain and Germany, is expected to jump by an extra €50 billion through 2019, to €215 billion… Europe’s security spending, though, will still pale in comparison to that of the United States…

“European armies are growing. In a reverse from planned cuts, France is preparing to add 23,000 positions to the army by 2019. An anti-Islamic State coalition that includes France and Britain will soon intensify the campaign against militants in Iraq and Syria, prompting additional spending on missiles, drones, jets and surveillance.

“Airbus is well positioned. The company supplies European militaries with a broad range of flying hardware such as the NH90 helicopter, the A400M cargo and troop transporter and the A330 multi-role refueling tanker. Airbus also has high-tech satellite surveillance equipment as well as integrated border and coastal security systems, a particular focus in Europe as the migrant crisis swells.”

The Return of Edmund Stoiber?

In a recent Update (#721), we ran an article about Edmund Stoiber (74), Germany’s former Premier of Bavaria. We reported that Stoiber, presently working for the EU, had stated that the only solution for Germany was to completely close its border to refugees for an unspecified period. He had also stated in the past that the Muslim culture was not compatible with European values. 

Bild Online published a stunning article on January 31 about “Stoiber’s comeback,” stating that he is traveling with current Premier of Bavaria, Horst Seehofer, to meet Vladimir Putin and that he has again become very influential pertaining to the direction of his party, Bavaria’s CSU. Stoiber is strongly opposed to Angela Merkel’s migrant policy, reiterating again to Bild that Islam has no place in Germany. The article also points out that Stoiber received “innumerable” invitations from Merkel’s CDU.

According to Bild, Stoiber has a close relationship with Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Söder (49), who is viewed as the potential successor to Seehofer, even though he is not Seehofer’s first choice. However, Bild states that with Stoiber’s support, Söder would definitely be elected. Söder is also a strong opponent to Merkel’s migrant policy, stating that it is “undemocratic.”

In a follow-up article, Bild predicted that Merkel will not resign, even though it seems that Stoiber would like to see her fall, but, according to Bild, Stoiber would not be a leader, and there is no one there who could fill the leadership role (“Es fehlt der Anfuehrer”; in English: “The Leader Is Missing.”). This may be true… for now.

On February 3, Bild Online reported on Seehofer’s und Steuber’s meeting with Putin and Russian ministers in Moscow. Bild stated that Steuber (honorary president of the CSU) and Putin have known each other for a long time, and that they have a good relationship. In fact, Seehofer’s meeting with Putin was allegedly arranged by Steuber. Observers see in Seehofer’s meeting with Putin a sign of a further deterioration of Seehofer’s relationship with Angela Merkel.

Deutsche Welle wrote on February 3:

“Horst Seehofer is flying to Moscow. It is a politically juicy and controversial visit by the Bavarian in a period of upheaval in German-Russian relations. Seldom have relations between Berlin and Moscow been in such a poor state as they are now… Seehofer is Merkel’s most dangerous critic… He may be flying to meet Putin as the state premier of Bavaria, but he will be received in Moscow as a representative of one of Germany’s three governing parties…

“The CSU’s brand of foreign policy has always had something unique about it. CSU grandees Franz-Josef Strauss and Edmund Stoiber were always good for political bomb shells on the domestic front… No wonder then, that Horst Seehofer sees himself in this tradition…”

Merkel Tries to Placate Critics of her Migrant Policy… Far Too Little, and Far Too Late

Reuters wrote on January 30:

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel tried on Saturday to placate the increasingly vocal critics of her open-door policy for refugees by insisting that most refugees from Syria and Iraq would go home once the conflicts there had ended…

“Support for her conservative bloc has slipped as concerns mount about how Germany will integrate the 1.1 million migrants who arrived last year, while crime and security are also in the spotlight after a wave of assaults on women in Cologne at New Year by men of north African and Arab appearance…

“Merkel said it was important to stress that most refugees had only been allowed to stay for a limited period. ‘We need … to say to people that this is a temporary residential status and we expect that, once there is peace in Syria again, once IS has been defeated in Iraq, that you go back to your home country with the knowledge that you have gained,’ she told a regional meeting of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania…”

The Local added on January 31:

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel… saw her worst poll results in more than five years. Merkel’s open-door policy, while initially winning praise last year, has come under mounting criticism, especially after the German city of Cologne was rocked by a wave of sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve blamed on migrants… Support for German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative alliance has slumped to its lowest since July 2012 as opposition over her liberal refugee policy grows, a survey showed Sunday…

“According to the poll published by the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, public support for Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and sister party Christian Social Union now stands at just 34 percent… The Social Democratic Party — the junior partner in Merkel’s left-right grand coalition, has also lost ground, shedding one percentage point to 24 percent…

“While Merkel does not face national elections until 2017, regional elections in three states in March will be a key test of support… A poll published Friday by news weekly Focus found that 40 percent of respondents want Merkel to resign.

“Nevertheless, a subsequent poll commissioned by Focus found that, with 41 percent, Merkel came in top as the politician whom the public believe can best manage the migrant crisis.”

This belief will be rapidly shattered.

Germany’s Anti-Immigrant Party Causes Storm of Criticism  

The Local wrote on January 31:

“Germany’s eurosceptic right-wing populist AfD party created a storm Saturday by suggesting police ‘if need be’ should threaten to shoot migrants seeking to enter the country.  ‘We need efficient controls to prevent so many unregistered asylum-seekers keeping on entering via Austria,’ said party chairwoman Frauke Petry (40), in comments carried by the Mannheimer Morgen regional daily. Border police ‘should be able if need be to have recourse to their firearms — as laid down by law,’ the paper quoted Petry as saying. ‘No policeman wants to fire on a refugee and I don’t want that either. But as a last resort there should be recourse to firearms,’ said Petry in comments which drew a storm of criticism.

“‘No policeman would be ready to fire on’ migrants, police union GdP said in a statement. ‘Whoever wants to deploy such methods clearly wants to suspend the rule of law,’ said GdP head Joerg Radek. ‘We have already seen that over the course of German history and we don’t ever want to go down that road again.’

“The head of the main opposition Social Democrat parliamentary group, Thomas Oppermann, blasted ‘an unacceptable mobilisation of public opinion against refugees while opposition Green Party lawmaker Konstantin von Notz blasted Petry as ‘irresponsible’…

“Notz said Petry was engaging in ‘extreme right-wing terrorism’ with her comments ramping up anti-refugee rhetoric in a country that has received more than one million migrants in the last year.

“AfD, meaning Alternative for Germany, was created as a eurosceptic platform in 2013 but has since veered sharply even further to the right, with some of its leaders voicing support for the anti-Islamic PEGIDA protest movement. Recent polls give 13 percent support for the group, making it Germany’s third-strongest political force behind the ruling Christian Democrats and the coalition partner the Social Democrats.”

On February 1, Deutsche Welle added:

“Alternative for Germany (AfD) leader Frauke Petry triggered outrage last week by suggesting police should have the right to shoot illegal migrants at the border ‘if necessary.’ The idea was echoed by her deputy Beatrix von Storch. When she was asked on her Facebook page on Saturday whether German border guards should use weapons against illegal female refugees with children, she answered with a clear ‘yes.’ But in the face of outrage across the political spectrum she decided to water down her comments: ‘The use of firearms against children is not permitted,’ von Storch said, before adding that ‘women are a different matter.’”

What makes these comments so explosive are recent reports in Bild, according to which police officers have been instructed NOT to arrest migrants who are observed stealing, as this would require too much work. In light of sexual assaults by migrants on German women, many Germans begin to wonder WHAT their government is willing to do to protect German citizens.

Germany’s “Most Dangerous” Woman?

The Independent wrote on February 1:

“The AfD is attracting growing support for its vitriolic anti-migrant stance. It has already won seats in five of Germany’s state parliaments and, in elections next month, is also on course to win seats in the state parliaments of Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony Anhalt, where polls suggest the party could win 15 per cent of the vote…

“Ms Petry, who has a degree from the University of Reading, was elected party leader in an internal putsch last July which ousted its middle-class and academic former leaders, who were mostly concerned with opposing the euro. Since then she and other populist right-wingers have rebranded it as an anti-migrant party…

“The party warns that German culture and identity will be destroyed by migrants… Ms Petry helped the AfD win seats in the east German state of Saxony in 2014 by advocating mildly anti-immigrant policies. She is seen as the acceptable face of the party’s right wing. But she is now being pulled further to the right by more radical and xenophobic figures within the party, whose stance appears to have increased AfD’s popularity among voters…

“The AfD leader risks being eclipsed by colleagues such as Björn Höcke, the party’s outspoken leader in the eastern state of Thuringia, whose speeches have been compared to those of Hitler’s propagandist, Joseph Goebbels. Mr Höcke, who regularly draws crowds of up to 8,000 supporters, recently appeared on a popular chat show brandishing a German flag. ‘For decades its seemed as if the rise of a politician like Björn Höcke was impossible,’ wrote Die Welt newspaper. ‘In the meantime, the impossible has become possible.’

“At an AfD rally in the eastern city of Magdeburg last week Mr Höcke regaled the party faithful with an apocalyptic vision of what was in store for the German ‘volk’ and ‘kultur’ unless the refugee influx was stopped. The migrants were a threat to ‘1,000 years of Germany’. He talked darkly of terrified German women aid workers who were too afraid ‘to wear makeup’ because they felt intimidated by Muslim migrants. ‘I am afraid for my country. This is what it feels like to be a foreigner in your own land! This catastrophic development has to be stopped’…”

Violence in Germany

The Local wrote on January 31:

“Far-right protesters clashed Saturday with rival, anti-fascist activists in a southwest German village [the Black Forest town of Villingen-Schwenningen] where assailants had hurled a hand grenade Friday as anti-refugee violence in the country escalates, police said… The grenade thrown over a fence Friday morning was filled with explosives but it was not immediately clear whether it was equipped with a detonator… It did not explode and no damage or injuries were reported.

“In an interview with German daily Die Welt published Saturday, the general secretary of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) party Peter Tauber said the act was ‘despicable and frightening’, and classified it as ‘attempted murder’… In a country that has welcomed more than one million migrants in the last year, violence against asylum seekers has been on the rise.

“The Federal Crime Office on Thursday reported 173 attacks against refugee shelters in 2015, more than six times the number recorded during the previous year. Another 10 cases were reported in January. Sigmar Gabriel, German vice chancellor and economy minister, was quoted in the press on Saturday as saying that there is ‘an alarming increase in acts of violence’ against refugees…”

Sadly, these kinds of violent demonstrations and counter-demonstrations remind us of events in the 1930’s, leading to the rise of Adolf Hitler. At that time, the demonstrations were staged by Communists and Nazis.

Young Girl’s Story of Rape a Lie?

The Guardian wrote on January 31:

“A 13-year-old Russian-German girl has admitted making up a story about being kidnapped and raped by migrants in a case that triggered a furore in Germany and briefly embroiled Berlin police in a spat with the Kremlin, state prosecutors said. The parents of the teenager, named only as Lisa, reported her missing on 11 January after she failed to appear at school in the Marzahn district of the capital. She reappeared 30 hours later with injuries on her face, and told her parents she had been attacked by men of Middle Eastern or north African appearance. News of the incident spread on social media, sparking outrage among Berlin’s Russian-German community.

“But when she was questioned by trained specialists three days later ‘she immediately admitted that the story of the rape was not true’, said the spokesman for the state prosecutor, Martin Steltner. He said the teenager had been scared of going home after the school had contacted her parents over an incident at school.

“Yet the allegations caused uproar in Berlin, particularly after reports of mass sexual assaults allegedly carried out by migrants in Cologne. A Russian-German community group staged a protest, supported by the Pegida-related Bärgida movement. The far-right National Democratic party also demonstrated in Marzahn. The mood was exacerbated by a report on Russian state TV, in which the girl’s relatives claimed her allegations were not being investigated…

“Analysis of the teenager’s mobile phone records showed she had spent the night with a friend, who is not being treated as a suspect. Her mother told Der Spiegel magazine on Sunday that Lisa was ‘doing very badly’ and was having treatment in a psychiatric ward.”

It is interesting, however, that Bild Online reported that Lisa’s mother apparently still believes in her daughter’s original story of having been raped.

Does German Government Order German Public TV On What to Report?

Breitbart wrote on February 2:

“National public service broadcaster Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF), which was recently forced into a humiliating apology for their silence on migrant violence and sex assault is being drawn into a fresh scandal after one of their former bureau chiefs admitted the company takes orders from the government on what it reports. He said journalists received instructions to write news that would be ‘to Ms. Merkel’s liking’.

“Former head of ZDF Bonn Dr. Wolfgang Herles make the remarks during a radio event… in Berlin where journalists discussed the media landscape. Moving on to the freedom of the press, the panel chair asked Dr. Herles whether things in Germany had got ‘seriously out of whack’. With an honesty perhaps unusual in Germany, Dr. Herles replied that ordinary Germans were totally losing faith in the media, something he called a ‘scandal’. He said: ‘We have the problem that – now I’m mainly talking about the public [state] media – we have a closeness to the government. Not only because commentary is mainly in line with the grand coalition (CSU, CDU, and SPD), with the spectrum of opinion, but also because we are completely taken in by the agenda laid down by the political class’.

“Worse than the mainstream, government controlled and poll-tax funded media in Germany just agreeing with the ruling coalition, the stations actually took orders on what was and was not to be reported on. He said: ‘…the topics about which are reported are laid down by the government. There are many topics that would be more important than what the government wants. But they, of course, want to deflect attention away from what doesn’t happen. Yet what doesn’t happen is often more important than what does happen – more important than gesture politics… Today, one is not allowed to say anything negative about the refugees’…”

Germany’s Latest Crazy Idea—Limits on Cash Transactions?

The Associated Press reported on February 3:

“The German government is considering introducing a limit of 5,000 euros ($5,450) on cash transactions in an effort to combat money laundering and financing of terrorism. Deputy finance minister Michael Meister said Wednesday that Germany would like to see a European solution, but could introduce a national limit if none is achieved, news agency dpa reported. He said ‘we can imagine a level of 5,000 euros.’…

“Germans tend to use cash more than many other Europeans. Opposition Green Party lawmaker Konstantin von Notz tweeted that trying to limit cash payments ‘is a new fundamental attack on data protection and privacy.’”

It is also a ridiculous idea. Germany’s government is under attack for not doing enough to fight terrorism and the current migrant crisis, but when it comes up with concepts, then they seem to be crazy, by unduly limiting the freedom of German citizens.

Britain’s Relationship with the EU

Deutsche Welle reported on February 3:

“Britain’s relationship with the EU has never been straightforward. History and simple geography dictate this – salt water separates us…

“Not only does the island nation perceive itself as removed from mainland Europe, it also maintains extremely close cultural and historical ties to a plethora of other major players: the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, India, Pakistan, much of Africa – the list keeps on rolling. In a sense, one might argue that some of these partners are closer to London than Paris, Berlin or Brussels…

“A latecomer to the European Economic Community, as it was known then, Britain joined in 1973… Then, as now, domestic politics drove the EU debate… Britain’s politicians view EU membership more favorably than its voters…”

Cameron’s Negotiations with Brussels a “Dismal Failure”

The Sun wrote on February 3:

“Cameron[‘s]… ‘renegotiation’ with Brussels has produced a steaming pile of manure. It is a dismal failure worse than we ever imagined. It will not improve one aspect of British life. It will achieve nothing whatsoever on the two central problems it was meant to tackle: our out-of-control immigration and the erosion of British powers by the EU.

“Brussels, not for the first time, has treated us with contempt and given us the square root of diddly-squat…

“The most abject defeat is on immigration. Only full, permanent border controls, with Britain choosing how many people come in, and who they are, can slow our population’s current expansion of 336,000 a year. But Mr Cameron had no will to demand them. He still cherishes the EU’s sacred ‘freedom of movement’ principle even as it causes chaos across the Continent…

“As for our sovereignty, the EU suggests a ‘red card’ system under which Britain could overturn a bad law if we could persuade 14 other national parliaments in six weeks to vote with us. William Hague, that born-again europhile, admits that’s near-impossible. Even our simple demand to stop British taxpayers funding child benefit for migrants’ kids living abroad was rejected. That insanity goes on . . . just at a lower rate.

“The rest of the EU’s ‘concessions’ were merely a confirmation of our existing terms. Remember: this is Brussels at its weakest and Britain at its strongest. The EU is in disarray, under siege from refugees and with extremism surging. Brussels knows Britain leaving this summer would be a disaster at best and fatal at worst. There was never going to be a better moment for Mr Cameron.”

USA and Britain Have Reportedly Been Spying on Israel for 18 Years

JTA wrote on January 29:

“U.S. and British intelligence services have reportedly spied on Israel for 18 years after cracking its army’s encryption for communication among fighter jets, drones and army bases. The information was reported Friday by The Intercept and the German newspaper Der Spiegel based on documents that came into the possession of Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who worked for U.S. intelligence before publishing classified material and fleeing to Russia.

“Britain and the United States reportedly have used this access to monitor Israel Defense Forces operations in the Gaza Strip, watch for a potential strike on Iran and keep tabs on the drone technology that Israel exports. Israel said later Friday it was disappointed but not surprised by the revelations. ‘This is an earthquake,’ an anonymous senior security source told Ynet. ‘It means that they have forcibly stripped us and, no less important, that probably none of our encrypted systems are safe from them. This is the worst leak in the history of Israeli intelligence.’ According to the reports, the breaking of the drone encryption allowed Britain and the United States to view images and videos broadcast to IDF commands during drone operations in Gaza, the West Bank and near the Jewish state’s northern border.”

When it became clear that the USA had been spying on Angela Merkel and had listened in to her phone conversations, Merkel uttered the (by now) famous words: “Friends don’t spy on friends.” Everybody knows, of course, that this concept is a sham and a farce. Still, since the USA and Great Britain have apparently been spying on Israel for 18 years, one must ask the question whether the USA and Great Britain have EVER been Israel’s friends.

The Temple Mount in the News

Voice of America reported on January 31:

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday if Hamas dares to attack Israel through cross-border tunnels from Gaza, Israel will retaliate with force greater than the 2014 war… A top Hamas official boasted Friday that the group has built ‘twice the number of resistance tunnels’ that were built during the war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s. He said hundreds of Hamas members are working to build tunnels to free what he described as holy places, including the al-Aqsa mosque in east Jerusalem – a site Jews revere as the Temple Mount…

“Also in an historic decision Sunday, the Israeli Cabinet approved a so-called egalitarian Jewish prayer space near the Western Wall, where Jews from all over the world of both sexes and religious beliefs can pray together… The Western Wall is Judaism’s holiest site. It is the last scrap of the wall that surrounded the ancient temple. Under Orthodox tradition, men and women are segregated when they pray… Many Orthodox Jews, including Cabinet members who voted against the move, condemn it as an affront to tradition.”

More Violence in Israel

JTA wrote on February 3:

“One of the two Israeli Border Police officers seriously injured in an attack by three Palestinian assailants in Jerusalem has died… The assailants, who entered Israel illegally from the Jenin area in the West Bank, were shot and killed by other officers… They were armed with a rifle, knives and an explosive device; police believe the men were planning a larger attack…

“Border Police stopped the attackers asking to see their identification documents. While one of the assailants took out his documents, another produced a gun and shot up the area, according to police. Hamas praised the attack, saying it dealt a ‘severe blow’ to Israel’s security apparatus…”

The Times of Israel added on February 3:

“The three West Bank Palestinians who stabbed and shot at the Israeli forces had been sitting and waiting for a large group of Israeli civilians to enter or leave the Old City, and had planned to target them, Israel’s Channel 2 news reported on Wednesday evening, citing police sources…

“One of three terrorists had vowed in a Facebook post to carry out a shooting attack, Channel 2 reported, ostensibly to avenge the killing of another Palestinian who attempted an attack at a border crossing in the northern West Bank last November. The TV report said all three of the attackers were members of families associated with Fatah.”

Zika Virus Spreading

Deutsche Welle reported on February 2:

“Health officials in Texas have reported a case of the Zika virus being transmitted through sexual contact, and not a mosquito bite. The infected person is said to have acquired it from someone who traveled to Venezuela…

“The WHO has said the virus is spreading rapidly in the Americas and could infect 4 million people. A global response unit has been launched to fight the virus… The virus has been linked to microcephaly, in which babies have abnormally small heads and improperly developed brains. Researchers believe that if a pregnant woman is bitten by an infected mosquito [Russian media claims, that the virus is spread through genetically-modified mosquitoes], particularly in the first trimester, she faces a higher risk of having a child with birth defects.

“The virus has now spread to 26 countries and territories including Brazil, which is the country hardest hit, with 3,700 suspected cases of microcephaly that may be linked to Zika… The race is on to find a vaccine to prevent the virus taking hold. There is no treatment or vaccine for Zika, which is in the same family of viruses as dengue fever.”

China Releases Color Pictures from their Recent Moon Landing

Techcrunch reported on January 30, 2016:

“This month, the China National Space Administration released all of the images from their recent moon landing to the public. There are now hundreds and hundreds of never-before-seen true color, high definition photos of the lunar surface available for download… In December of 2013, China joined the ranks of Russia and the United States when they successfully soft-landed on the lunar surface, becoming the third country ever to accomplish this feat. What made China’s mission especially remarkable was that it was the first soft-landing on the moon in 37 years, since the Russians landed their Luna 24 probe back in 1976…

“Chang’e 3, named after the goddess of the Moon in Chinese mythology, was a follow-up mission to Chang’e 1 and Chang’e 2 which were both lunar orbiters. The objective of the Chang’e 3 mission was to demonstrate the key technologies required for a soft moon landing and rover exploration. The mission was also equipped with a telescope and instruments to perform geologic analysis of the lunar surface.

“Once the 1,200 kg Chang’e lander reached the surface at a location known as Mare Imbrium, it deployed the 140 kg Yutu rover, whose name translates to ‘Jade Rabbit.’ The Yutu rover was equipped with 6 wheels, a radar instrument, and x-ray, visible and near-infrared spectrometers (instruments that can measure the intensity of different wavelengths of light). Yutu’s geologic analysis suggested that the lunar surface is less homogeneous than originally thought…

“China’s follow-up mission, Chang’e 4 is scheduled to launch as early as 2018 and plans to land on the far side of the moon. If this happens, China will become the first nation to land a probe on the lunar far side. With the Chang’e series, China has shown that, unlike NASA, their focus is on lunar, rather than Martian, exploration. But they’re not the only ones that have their sights set on the moon… a number of private companies are building spacecraft designed to soft-land on the lunar surface in the next few years. One of those companies, Moon Express, plans to be the first ever private company to land a spacecraft on the moon and has already secured a launch for their spacecraft in 2017.”

Incredibly, there are still quite a few conspiracy proponents who believe that there was never a moon landing, and that all the undisputable reports are wrong.

John Kerry Admits: US Money for Iran Might Be Used for Terrorist Attacks

JTA wrote on January 21:

“Secretary of State John Kerry said Iran would likely use some [U.S.] money freed by the lifting of sanctions for terrorism, but if it does, it will be subject to separate sanctions. ‘I think that some of it will end up in the hands of the IRGC or other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists,’ Kerry said Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in an interview by CNBC reported by The Associated Press. The IRGC is an acronym for the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps…”

IS Prepares Attacks Against Israel

The Economist wrote on January 23:

“IS has yet to attack Israel. Its main forces in southern Syria are about 80km (50 miles) from Israel’s borders. Last month, IS put out a recording… saying that ‘with the help of Allah we are getting closer to you every day. The Israelis will soon see us in Palestine.’ On January 18^th… the chief of staff of Israel’s armed forces, warned that ‘the success against IS raises the probability we will see them turning their gun-barrels towards us and also the Jordanians’.

“The most direct and likely avenue of attack is across Israel’s frontier with Syria. That is because the situation there is already chaotic; IS bases and civilian villages are close to Israel; and the terrain is mountainous…

“But IS may also choose other places from which to attack. Wilayat Sinai, which means the ‘Sinai province’ of IS, has been operating on Israel’s western border for five years. It declared allegiance to IS in late 2014 and claimed responsibility for blowing up a Russian airliner last October, killing 224 people. But it is embroiled in a bloody insurgency against Egypt’s security forces. Israel, which is discreetly providing the Egyptians with intelligence and military help, says that IS shares routes for smuggling arms and other supplies with Hamas, the Islamist group that controls Gaza. These could be used for launching future attacks on Israel.

“The Israelis are also worried that radical Palestinians who are citizens of Israel may be working for IS… ‘IS is here and it’s no secret,’ says Reuven Rivlin, Israel’s president. ‘I’m not talking about the borders of Israel, but about IS within. Research, arrests, witnesses, open and classified analysis all indicate clearly that IS’s popularity is growing and that even Israeli Arabs are actually joining up with it.’ Vigilance along Israel’s borders may not be enough.”

Violence in Israeli-Occupied West Bank

Reuters reported on January 23:

“A 13-year-old Palestinian girl was shot dead by an Israeli security guard she tried to stab at a settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israeli police said on Saturday. It was the latest fatality in an almost four-month-long surge of violence that has raised concern of wider escalation, a decade after the last Palestinian uprising subsided, and it followed two stabbings this week inside settlements carried out by Palestinian teenagers, according to Israeli authorities…

“Since the start of October, Israeli forces have killed at least 149 Palestinians, 95 of them assailants according to authorities. Most of the others have died in violent protests. Almost daily stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks by Palestinians have killed 25 Israelis and a U.S. citizen. Many of the Palestinian assailants have been teenagers.

“On Sunday, an Israeli mother of six was stabbed to death at her home in a West Bank settlement and a 15-year-old Palestinian was arrested for the attack. On Monday, Israeli troops shot and wounded a 17-year-old Palestinian who had stabbed and wounded a pregnant Israeli woman in a settlement.

“The bloodshed has been fueled by various factors including frustration over the 2014 collapse of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and the growth of Jewish settlements on land Palestinians seek for an independent state. Palestinian leaders have said that with no breakthrough on the horizon, desperate youngsters see no future ahead. Israel says young Palestinians are being incited to violence by their leaders and Islamist groups that call for Israel’s destruction.”

Jews Leave France in Record Numbers

CNN reported on January 23:

“Nearly 8,000 French Jews moved to Israel in the year following the Charlie Hebdo attack, according to the Jewish Agency, which handles Jewish immigration, or aliyah, to Israel. The number of French Jews moving to Israel has doubled — and doubled again — in the past five years…

“Britain has the second-highest Jewish emigration from Western Europe, but the scale is much smaller. According to the Jewish Agency, 774 British Jews moved to Israel in 2015, less than one-tenth the number of French Jews… Many French Jews settle in Ashdod, a city in southern Israel known for its large French population… The Jewish Agency says violence is part — but not all — of the reason for French immigration…

“French Prime Minister Manuel Valls recently expressed the fear that an exodus of Jews would change the country for the worse. ‘Without the Jews, France is no longer France. It’s the oldest community. They have been French citizens since the French revolution’…

“But when the European Union studied the prevalence of anti-Semitism in 2013, it found that 74% of Jews in France avoid openly identifying themselves as Jewish at least some of the time, and more than a quarter of French Jews always do…”

State Repression in Egypt Greater Than under Nasser and Mubarak

The Guardian wrote on January 24:

“The scale of state repression in Egypt is greater today than it has been for generations, one of the country’s most prominent journalists and human rights advocates has told the Guardian. Hossam Bahgat, an investigative reporter who was recently detained by Egypt’s military intelligence agency, spoke out ahead of the fifth anniversary of the start of Egypt’s revolution on Monday – the run-up to which has seen an unprecedented crackdown by security forces against opposition and dissent.

“‘This is without doubt the worst we’ve ever seen,’ said Bahgat… ‘The level of repression now is significantly higher than it was under the Mubarak regime, and people from older generations say it is worse than even the worst periods of the 1950s and 1960s [under the rule of Gamal Abdel Nasser]’…

“Egypt under Sisi has jailed more journalists than any other country on earth bar China…”

Secret and Confidential Report Reveals Wide-Spread Sex Attacks and Thefts in Germany through Migrants

Deutsche Welle reported on January 23:

“Sex attacks and thefts like the ones that happened in Cologne on New Year’s Eve were also reported in 12 other German states, German media say. The information comes from a leaked report of the federal criminal police.

“The German broadcasters WDR and NDR, as well as the newspaper ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’ on Saturday reported that the phenomenon of sexual violence paired with thievery was more widespread on New Year’s Eve than previously thought. They cited a confidential paper prepared for interior ministers by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). The report covered sexual offenses in public places in which the victims were also stolen from, including a type of con in which thieves approach victims and hug or otherwise surprise them, with the aim of distracting them in order to pick their pockets…

“The report, dated January 13, said Hamburg and North Rhine-Westphalia (the state where Cologne is located) reported the highest number of offenses. In Hamburg there were 195 complaints, most of them for sexual offenses. Investigators in North Rhine-Westphalia reported 1,076 crimes altogether, mainly in the cities of Cologne, Dusseldorf and Bielefeld. That number included 692 bodily harm or property offenses and 384 sexual offenses… Similar incidents were reported in Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland, albeit on a much smaller scale…  Across the country the victims were almost [always] female and the suspects were men aged between about 17 and 30…

“The investigators concluded that the nature of the reported thefts was a new form of criminality which up until now had not been widely experienced across Germany. The report’s authors noted, however, that it provided only a snapshot of the situation, which continued to be ‘dynamic.’… Meanwhile, police investigating the Cologne attacks have enlisted the help of specialists from London. The so-called ‘super recognizers’ from Scotland Yard will assist in analyzing video footage from New Year’s Eve. Their ability to pick out faces in a crowd is considered superior to facial recognition software.”

Educating Migrants… by Sending Wrong Signals?

The Daily Mail reported on January 23:

“The spate of migrant sex attacks has led authorities across Europe to start handing out cartoon strips explaining to refugees why they should not assault women. The Austrian interior ministry has issued a ‘behaviour guide’, which includes drawings of a man hitting a woman – covered by a giant red cross – and an image of gay kissing, approved with a tick.

“Authorities in Lucerne in Switzerland plan to distribute a version of the leaflet at its carnival next month and said the decision was made in the wake of the Cologne sex attacks.”

WARNING! Despicable Migrant Acts Reported from Germany

The following reports are sickening, and the reader needs to be warned. But it would not be right to suppress them for the sake of “political correctness” or because of their offensive and explicit nature.

The Daily Mail wrote on January 24:

“Migrants have been banned from a historic swimming bath in Germany after a gang of men were caught on camera masturbating in a hot tub and sexually assaulting women. Several other men were seen ’emptying their bowels’ in the children’s end of the main swimming pool at the Johannisbad baths in Zwickau, Saxony.

“Management at the historic baths are reportedly no longer allowing migrants into the facilities following the allegations while some local swimmers have stayed away after the incidents… ‘the lifeguards have to protect women and girls from the asylum seekers. Young men wanted to forcibly penetrate the female changing room,’ [civilian servant Rainer Mr Kallweit] said, describing another incident at another swimming pool… Police have arrested several men in connection to the incident at the baths. The men have since been released.”

Breitbart added on January 22:

“The local radio station reports the actions of the migrants [have] caused ‘outrage’, and a number of sexual harassment(s) of women and girls by migrants has been reported. Migrants have now been banned from the pool until they can be educated at the migrant centres about ‘behaviour towards woman and girls in swimwear’ and the ‘user regulations of our baths’.

“This behaviour in Zwickau is not by any means unique in Germany. Breitbart London has reported on a number of sex attacks on children in swimming baths over the past week, with girls as young as 11 and boys as young as three being targeted by migrant gangs. On one occasion in Munich, a pair of young girls enjoying the waterslide at their local pool were groped, ‘allegedly under their bathing suits’, ‘and possibly raped’ by a gang of ‘refugees’.

“The men believed to be responsible, Syrian and Afghan asylum seekers, were arrested and released by police.”

Is Islam Partially to Be Blamed for Muslims’ Sexual Assaults?

Deutsche Welle wrote on January 24:

“Since the assaults on New Year’s Eve, some German media are inclined to blame Islam for the attacks on young women. They are not altogether wrong. And Islam also plays a role in this: not because it is based on an inherently sexist philosophy, but because it has a lack of hierarchical structure. To put it plainly: The vast majority of Muslims abhor what happened on New Year’s Eve. Nonetheless, the problem remains that the attacks have not been condemned at the highest level within Islam – nor can they be.

“As long as Sunnis in particular have no figure of authority comparable to the Catholic pope, and no interpretation of Islam that is binding for all believers, there will be an uncontrolled proliferation of theological interpretation.

“A look at Saudi Arabia, which sees itself as the leading power in the Sunni world, shows where this leads. Here, the religious scholar Muhammad Salih Al-Munajjid runs a Salafist website. Among sites of this kind, it is in the top ten in terms of the number of hits. Al-Munajjid was recently asked by a user whether it was permissible for married Muslims to have sex with so-called ‘slave girls’ – a euphemistic and cynical way of referring to Asian women who work in Saudi Arabia as housemaids. The religious scholar’s response: Yes, of course, no doubt about it.

“This kind of perverted theology of sex is also part of the contract for the terrorist organization calling itself ‘Islamic State.’ It permits its followers to rape women without fear of punishment – Christian and Yazidi women, and other captives, too. ‘IS’ members claim that they do this with Allah’s blessing…

“This is the flipside of the practice currently lauded in German Islamic scholarship as ‘the tolerance of ambiguity.’ The great freedom of interpretation enjoyed by even the most questionable imams can also lead down some very dark roads. This is why a large section of the German public is very worried.”

More Cover-Ups in Germany?

Breitbart wrote on January 27:

“The Russian foreign minister has become involved in an unusual democratic spat with Germany over the alleged cover-up of the gang rape of a 13 year old Russian citizen in Germany by ‘Arab-looking men’. German police have claimed the disappearance by the 13 year old daughter of a Russian migrant family for 30 hours on January 11th, and her use as a ‘sex slave’ by a trio of Arab men had been consensual, and no kidnap or rape had been involved.

“Russia disputes this version of events, with Russian media reporting the girl had been taken from her family and passed around the three men for hours on end. Sex with a 13 year old girl, whether consensual or not, is a crime in Germany, yet there have not yet been any arrests.

“The persistence of reports in the Russian media about the case has now led the Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to become involved, accusing Germany of papering over the cracks and covering up her rape. Speaking at a press conference yesterday morning, Mr. Lavrov said of the young girl who has only been identified as ‘Lisa F.’, that she had ‘clearly not voluntarily disappeared for 30 hours’. Mr. Lavrov said the German authorities had in the past shown a tendency to ‘paint over the reality of domestic politics for reasons of political correctness’.

“The story, coming so soon after the mass sex assault and rape of European women by migrant males in Cologne and other German cities at New Year, and multiple molestations and rapes at swimming baths has excited Germany’s sizeable Russian migrant community. Thousands of Russian-German citizens rallied at the weekend in German cities… declaring solidarity with the girl and carrying banners declaring ‘stay away from our children’.

“The news story and alleged coverup is threatening to develop into a major diplomatic incident, after Mr. Lavrov’s involvement and a German lawyer filing charges against Russian state television. He accuses a journalist of the channel of making unproven assertions by reporting Germany is suffering from mass migrant rape, reports Der Spiegel.”

Germany’s AfD in Third Place

Deutsche Welle wrote on January 24:

“The German daily ‘Bild am Sonntag’ reported on Sunday that the populist right-wing [anti-Immigrant] Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has reached 10 percent for the first time in a recent poll. According to the article, 17 percent of men would vote for AfD while only 2 percent of women would do so.

“The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the party of Chancellor Angela Merkel, saw its support fall by 2 percentage points to 36 percent. The Social Democrats (SPD), the CDU’s coalition partner, came in at 25 percent…

“A majority of Germans, meanwhile, said they disagreed with the decision to bar the AfD from televised debates in the states of Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt. Of those polled, 53 percent of Germans polled said the party should be able to participate in the debates, while 34 percent said it shouldn’t.”

German Far-Right Internet Platform Banned and Administrators Arrested

The Associated Press reported on January 27:

“The German government on Wednesday banned a far-right Internet platform that it accused of spreading ‘racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, homophobic and anti-Islamic content,’ and federal prosecutors said two people were arrested… The two arrested people were the administrators of the Altermedia website and therefore responsible for its content, which included banned Nazi slogans and the denial of the Holocaust as well as incitement of violence against foreigners, the prosecutors’ office said.

“The server was located in Russia to prevent German authorities gaining access, it added… German security officials say that the far right has become much more savvy in using of the Internet and social media to push its message to a broader audience. The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence, Hans-Georg Maassen, told reporters Tuesday that ‘there is the danger of a gray zone developing between far-right extremists, right-wing conservatives and citizen protesters with significant potential for violence.’”

2016—a Difficult Year for Germany and Merkel

The Financial Times wrote on January 17:

“This is going to be a difficult year for Germany, one in which the policies of the past may turn out to be unsustainable. The most unsustainable of all was Angela Merkel’s invitation to open the doors to Syrian refugees without limitation. The German chancellor must either have misjudged the effect or acted recklessly — or both. A few months and 1m refugees later, the discontent is growing inside the Christian Democratic Union, her party, and in the country at large.

“Gerhard Schröder, her Social Democratic predecessor, last week came out against the policy with exactly the same arguments as the right-wingers in Ms Merkel’s own party: Germany cannot absorb such a large number. More than 1m refugees arrived in the country in 2015. It could be twice as many this year and the same again next — more if you include family members who will eventually follow.

“It is tempting to think of refugees and migrants as a new source of labour. But in this case this just is not true, at least not for now. The majority of those who arrive in Germany lack the skills needed in the local labour market. They will enter the low wage sector of the economy, and drive down wages, producing another deflationary shock. This is the last thing Germany and the eurozone need right now…

“The second challenge is the economic downturn in emerging markets. There are few large countries as dependent on the global economy as Germany, and few where there is so little awareness of that fact, at least in public debate…

“The third challenge for Germany in 2016 is the fallout from the Volkswagen emissions scandal. This could be the single biggest shock of all because Germany has been over-reliant on the car industry for far too long…

“Finally, 2016 promises to be the year of backlash against German dominance of the eurozone. That did not happen during the crisis. The leaders of the countries in the eurozone periphery kept their heads down…

“While most of the threats appear to be external, they are caused by domestic policy choices…”

Christian Clergymen to Wear Beards to Impress Muslims?

Daily Mail wrote on January 23:

“Clergymen should grow beards to emphasise their holiness to Muslims, the Bishop of London has suggested… Richard Chartres said the modern fashion for facial hair… would… be likely to impress those from Eastern cultures where wearing a beard could mark a man out as holy. He singled out two priests in Tower Hamlets… who have grown bushy beards… He said the desire of the clergy… to ‘reach out to the culture of the majority of their parishioners can only be applauded’.

“He went on to say that David Beckham – who he describes as the ‘nearest thing to a secular saint’ – has ‘stimulated countless imitators’.”

The Telegraph added on January 22:

“Now the fashion for beards has been given the blessing of the Church of England, after one of the country’s most senior clerics praised vicars who grow them to appeal to Muslim communities around them… In Islam beards are viewed as an ‘adornment’ and Muslim men are encouraged to wear them to honour the Prophet Mohammed.”

In Germany, some Muslims suggest or even “demand” that alcohol should be prohibited (at least in public places) so as to not to offend Muslims. In addition, some “demand” a special national Muslim “Holy Day.”

London No Longer Ethnically British

Daily Mail wrote on January 23:

“Since 2001, immigration has transformed the capital. More than half of Londoners are now not ethnically British…

“This week, it emerged that Brussels is attempting to blackmail Britain by saying that if we don’t take as many as 90,000 migrants a year, we will not be able to send failed asylum seekers back to safe countries on the Continent. Then came the story that a tribunal had ruled that a group of migrants in the Jungle camp in Calais had a ‘human right’ to join family members in Britain. It is a precedent that could have far-reaching implications.

“Aside from legal rulings, the truth is that much of our immigration policy is now dictated by criminal trafficking gangs who make a fortune smuggling people into Britain — not our elected leaders and certainly not voters and taxpayers. It is criminal gangs who decide who comes into the UK and in what numbers. They largely decide what happens to the migrants once they arrive…

“Uncontrolled immigration has changed London for ever. And, most shamefully, not one of our leaders has lifted a finger to stop it.”

Reports from Germany are reaching us stating that local governments are approaching home owners, inquiring of them whether they would want to house migrants. At this point, this would strictly be on a voluntary basis, and the government would pay a good sum of money to the landlords for providing housing to refugees.

“Shadow of Populism Hangs over Davos”

The Financial Times wrote on January 22:

“The populists are those political forces that advance ideas that are generally seen as dangerous or facile to those at Davos. These ideas include the US building a wall to keep out immigrants, Britain leaving the EU or anybody raising tariffs or dismissing climate change. And these forces are on the rise.

“The shadow of Donald Trump has loomed over Davos this year. So has the prospect that refugee flows into Europe will undermine centrist leaders such as Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. More broadly, those at Davos are aware that they increasingly represent the ‘unpopular’ — the business and political elites that are the targets of public anger and disillusionment…

“It is gradually dawning on people in the Swiss resort that either Mr Trump or Ted Cruz, the Texas senator, will probably win the Republican nomination, and that the ‘unthinkable’ — a Trump or Cruz victory in November’s presidential election — could happen…

“European politicians, meanwhile, are battling their own populists. Ms Merkel, who normally gives a warmly applauded speech at Davos, has had to stay at home this year to deal with the refugee crisis. In her absence, Joachim Gauck, Germany’s president, took to the stage to issue a thinly veiled attack on Ms Merkel’s refusal to put a numerical limit on the number of refugees Germany can accept. He argued that ‘if democrats do not want to talk about limitations then populists and xenophobes will’.

“Mr Gauck was not alone in his warnings about the political effects of refugee flows. Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, warned that Europe has ‘six to eight weeks’ to stem the flow of migrants, before the pressure to reimpose frontier controls within the EU becomes irresistible.

“Meanwhile, Davos is also having to grapple with the idea that the UK might actually vote to leave the EU this year. David Cameron, the UK prime minister, on Thursday gave a confident speech in Davos, where most people are inclined to believe that Britain will ultimately vote to stay in the EU. But that confident stance involves dismissing recent opinion polls that suggest a British exit is quite likely…

“For the moment, the Davos mood on populism is more one of deep concern and uncertainty than full-blown panic. But the next 12 months will present a series of crucial tests. It is possible… that when the WEF gathers this time next year, Mr Trump will be US president, the UK will have voted to leave the EU and border controls will have been restored across Europe. Those developments would turn the Davos world upside down.”

Did Putin Order Litvinenko’s Murder?

Daily Mail wrote on January 20 and updated the article on January 22:

“Vladamir Putin may have ordered the murder of Alexander Litvinenko after he claimed the Russian President was a practising paedophile… Mr Litvinenko accused his rival of abusing children just weeks before two assassins slipped radioactive polonium 210 into his cup of tea in a London hotel in October 2006…

“Sir Robert Owen said today in a major report on his murder that Mr Putin ‘probably’ ordered it and admitted Litvinenko’s ‘highly personal attacks’ may be a motive for his death… His sensational report has sparked an international diplomatic row between Britain and Russia ignited today after an independent probe into the killing of Alexander Litvinenko said President Putin had ‘probably’ personally authorised the 2006 killing…

“Mr Litvinenko – who had accused the Russian president on his death bed – was killed by two FSB spies who slipped radioactive polonium 210 into his tea pot at a Mayfair hotel in central London, Sir Robert Owen said today in a major report.

“Prime Minister David Cameron today said the report outlined what happened was ‘absolutely appalling’ but he admitted the Syria crisis meant Britain had to have a relationship with Russia albeit one with ‘clear eyes and a cold heart’…

“Mr Litvinenko’s widow Marina urged Britain to impose sanctions on Russia as a result of the findings which today prompted the Russian Ambassador to claim there had been a ‘whitewash’ to cover up the ‘incompetence’ of the UK’s security services. Ambassador Alexander Yakovenko said it was ‘unacceptable’ for Britain to link Russia to a state-sponsored assassination…

“Just days before he fell ill, Litvinenko accused Mr Putin of responsibility for the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya. The report said there was ‘undoubtedly a personal dimension to antagonism’ between the two men…

“Mr Cameron will face growing calls to impose sanctions on high-profile individuals in Russia if the Kremlin refuses to extradite Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun, the alleged assassins…

“There is overwhelming evidence linking the pair to the murder but both deny any involvement and Russian President Mr Putin has so far refused to extradite them. The death of Litvinenko marked a post-Cold War low point in Anglo-Russian relations, and ties have never recovered…

“Shadow home secretary Andy Burnham said the killing of Mr Litvinenko using radioactive material exposed thousands of Londoners to unacceptable risk… ‘this is one of the most shocking and disturbing reports ever presented to this Parliament,’ he said. ‘It confirms that the Russian state at its highest level sanctioned the killing of a British citizen on the streets of our capital city and in so doing exposed thousands of Londoners to unacceptable levels of risk… Mr Burnham also said the UK should try to prevent Russia from staging the 2018 World Cup.”

The Daily Mail added in an article, dated January 22:

“Alexander Litvinenko claimed that Vladimir Putin had been caught on camera having sex with young boys, according to the inquiry into the spy’s murder. When the future Russian president was a student, he was filmed abusing children in a flat where another top politician had a threesome with prostitutes, Litvinenko wrote in a sensational web post.

“The wild claim is recorded in Sir Robert Owen’s inquiry report as part of a long list of allegations made by the assassinated spy against Mr Putin after he fled Russia and settled in Britain…”

A Helpless and Spineless British Government

In an accompanying article, dated January 22, Daily Mail published a strong editorial piece by Edward Lucas who writes for The Economist and is the author of “The New Cold War: How the Kremlin Menaces Both Russia and the West”:

“Russia has murdered a British citizen on the streets of London. It has blustered, gloated and lied. And we are not going to do much about it. That is the dismal upshot of the public inquiry into the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006. What is abundantly clear is that the British Government is not going to respond properly to the outrageous behaviour of what is a rogue state in all but name…

“Russia is a highly bureaucratic and centralised country. It is inconceivable that anything as risky and important as the assassination of a British citizen, especially one working for MI6, would not be signed off at the highest level…

“Only when relations between the two countries cooled after Russia attacked Ukraine in 2014 did the [British] Government finally… agree to give Mrs Litvinenko and the other witnesses their day in court. Yet none of the evidence given to the inquiry will have come as a surprise to the authorities. Britain’s intelligence services are all too well-informed about the depravity, greed and murderous brutality that reign in the Kremlin.

“They report this in graphic detail to Mr Cameron and other leaders, to the point that the Prime Minister feels physically repelled by Mr Putin when he has to meet him in person…

“Our own diplomats see the naming and shaming of the Putin regime not as an opportunity to be exploited, but as an obstacle to be overcome. They believe that Russia’s help is indispensable in the attempt to start peace talks over Syria, where Mr Putin’s ally President Assad is benefiting from the Russian aggression against militant opposition armies. That is a catastrophically mistaken approach. If we want to bring the Assad regime to the negotiating table, we should be increasing pressure on its backers, such as Russia and Iran, not soft-soaping them.

“The Russian state murdered Mr Litvinenko to send a message to other Russians: do not defect; do not co-operate with Western spy agencies. If you do so, we will hunt you down and mete out a slow, agonising death. It was a message to Britain, too: Russia can do what it likes in the streets of our capital city. British citizenship bestows no protection.”

Britain Not Interested in Opening another Front over Murder of British Citizen

The Guardian wrote on January 21:

“From a British diplomatic point of view, the Litvinenko affair has long been viewed as murky water under the bridge… no one in British government circles needed a high court judge to convince them that Alexander Litvinenko’s murder might have happened with Vladimir Putin’s knowledge.

“The British government did not want Sir Robert Owen’s inquiry to be established in the first place and would certainly never have wanted its explosive findings, implicating the Russian president, to be published at such an excruciatingly sensitive time. As brutal as it may sound, Syria, Ukraine and the state of the world economy all take priority over a decade-old death…

“The British view is that, with existing sanctions against Russia over Ukraine retaining only fragile support in the EU, this is not the time to open another front.

“But one suspects David Cameron has learned a painful lesson. At the outset of his premiership, he believed he had struck a strong personal relationship with Putin. There was a belief Putin was not loyal to Assad. Now there is nothing but disillusionment. The prime minister is aware of the scale of Russian cybercrime, feels he was personally lied to over Ukraine and sees Putin’s defence of Assad as destructive…”

FBI Ready to Indict Clinton?

Newsmax wrote on January 25:

“The FBI is ready to indict Hillary Clinton and if its recommendation isn’t followed by the U.S. attorney general, the agency’s investigators plan to blow the whistle and go public with their findings, former U.S. House Majority leader Tom DeLay tells Newsmax TV…

“Clinton is under FBI investigation for her use of a private server to conduct confidential government business while she was secretary of state. But some Republicans fear any FBI recommendation that hurts Clinton will be squashed by the Obama administration…”

Fight Between Trump and Fox Escalates

The Washington Post wrote on January 27:

“Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump abruptly announced here Tuesday that he would not participate in Thursday’s scheduled debate, escalating his off-and-on feud with Fox News Channel and throwing the GOP campaign into turmoil. Trump’s assertion, which his campaign manager insisted was irreversible, came less than one week before the kickoff Iowa caucuses. He once again defied the conventional rules of politics, and used his power and prominence to shape the campaign agenda and conversation.

“So far, Trump’s untraditional moves have only expanded his support…

“The Republican debates have become must-see television, in part because of the allure of Trump’s star power and unpredictable candidacy. But he said Tuesday that he thinks Fox and other television networks have been taking advantage of him by selling advertisements for their debates at a high premium… Trump said he would instead host a competing event in the state designed to raise money for wounded veterans…

“Trump long has objected to the participation of Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly as one of the three moderators, claiming she has treated him unfairly with both her questioning of him at last August’s debate and her commentary since then. Trump also said that a ‘wise-guy press release’ that the network issued earlier on Tuesday belittling him was inappropriately antagonistic and childish.

“Fox’s statement said that network officials ‘had learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president.’ The statement added that Trump ‘has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.’ After reading it, Trump said: ‘I said, “Bye-bye.”’ ‘Fox is playing games,’ Trump said. ‘They can’t toy with me like they toy with everybody else. Let them have the debate. Let’s see how they do with the ratings.’ [According to a poll conducted by Fox News host Greta von Susteren, 83% of conservative viewers said that they would not watch the debate if Trump was not in it.]

“Earlier Tuesday, Fox News Channel Chairman and Chief Executive Roger Ailes said the network would defend Kelly even if it means losing Trump in the debate. In Iowa, Trump is in a fierce and increasingly nasty fight with Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Both men have traded places atop recent polls here, and the outcome of Monday’s caucuses could have a profound effect on the direction of the nominating contest. By announcing that he will not debate, Trump likely will dominate news coverage and deny Cruz and other opponents a face-to-face confrontation before Iowa Republicans go to caucus…

“The Republican National Committee, which sanctions and helps organize the official debates, vowed late Thursday not to intervene in Trump’s dispute with Fox…”

Newsmax added on January 27:

“There’s only one man at Fox News who Donald Trump reportedly would talk to about his bombshell decision to boycott… the debate — media mogul Rupert Murdoch. New York magazine reports the GOP presidential front-runner wasn’t taking calls from Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes… ‘in recent months Murdoch has been attending news meetings at Fox in the wake of a health scare that forced Ailes to take an extended leave of absence,” the magazine reports. ‘Succession planning at Fox is very much on Murdoch’s agenda. If Ailes loses his grip on the Trump situation — and right now it looks like he is — Murdoch will have another reason to worry about the stability of his most valuable asset.’…

“New York also reports the network is now split over Fox News host and debate moderator Megyn Kelly — whom Trump has been vilifying ever since the first Fox News debate Aug. 6 — between allies like Brit Hume and conservative anchors who are angry ‘that Kelly has become the face of the network.’ The magazine reports one unnamed anchor was furious that Kelly hosted Michael Moore on her program Tuesday night — and that the lefty filmmaker defended her against Trump… The magazine reports even if Trump’s boycott backfires, however, ‘he’s already achieved a historic victory: exploding the myth that a Republican candidate can’t openly challenge Fox.’”

According to Bloomberg, January 27, “Trump isn’t the first top-tier presidential candidate to skip a debate. Ronald Reagan did not attend a Republican debate ahead of the 1980 Iowa caucuses, which he lost to George H.W. Bush. Reagan went on to the win the nomination and the presidency.”

Scandal in Texas

The website of chron.com reported on January 27:

“A grand jury convened to investigate whether a Houston Planned Parenthood clinic had sold the organs of aborted fetuses on Monday cleared the clinic and instead indicted the undercover videographers behind the allegations, surprising the officials who called for the probe and delighting supporters of the women’s health organization.

“The Harris County grand jury indicted David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, both of California, on charges of tampering with a governmental record, a second-degree felony with a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison. It also charged Daleiden, the leader of the videographers, with the same misdemeanor he had alleged – the purchase or sale of human organs, presumably because he had offered to buy in an attempt to provoke Planned Parenthood employees into saying they would sell…

“The videographers, who had posed as employees of a company that buys tissue and filmed interactions with Planned Parenthood executives, issued a statement saying they had not committed any crimes. ‘The Center for Medical Progress uses the same undercover techniques that investigative journalists have used for decades in exercising our First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and of the press, and follows all applicable laws,’ the statement said…”

The frustration of the American people with our system can be easily understood when, in a horrendous miscarriage of justice, the guilty are cleared and the innocent are indicted.

Violence and Death in Oregon

The Huffington Post reported on January 26:

“Ammon Bundy, leader of the month-long militant occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Burns, Oregon, was arrested Tuesday in a highway confrontation with law enforcement that killed one of his followers and wounded another… The FBI said the shootings happened when agents, along with Oregon state troopers, ‘began an enforcement action’ on Highway 395 to arrest people involved in the armed occupation on charges of conspiracy to impede federal officials from discharging their duties…

“The occupation was spearheaded by the Bundy brothers, sons of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, as a protest against the treatment of two local ranchers jailed for arson who were ordered to return to prison after a federal judge ruled their original sentences were not long enough. Occupiers also sought to put federal land under local control, ripping up government fences to make their point. The armed anti-government group had occupied a building in the Malheur refuge since early January…

“Oregon Gov. Kate Brown called on federal authorities to end the occupation last week, criticizing what appeared at the time to be the government’s lack of response. She said the militants had cost taxpayers nearly a half-million dollars. ‘This spectacle of lawlessness must end,’ Brown said at a press conference. ‘I will not stop insisting that federal officials enforce the law.’…”

Newsmax reported on January 27:

“Mel Bundy, brother of Oregon protest leader Ammon Bundy, claimed Wednesday that cops ‘murdered’ their group’s spokesman ‘in cold blood’ during a shootout late Tuesday that led to the arrest of eight people near the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. ‘LaVoy (Finicum) got out with his hands up in the air, up in the air, saying, “I don’t have a gun,”’ Bundy said in an exclusive interview on Newsmax TV’s prime time show Dennis Michael Lynch: Unfiltered.

“‘He had his hands on his head — and then they shot him. They started firing on him. They shot him. He went to the ground — and they shot him some more.’… ‘They killed LaVoy,’ Mel Bundy told Lynch. ‘Ammon wanted everybody to know, that he is an eyewitness of the murder of LaVoy Finicum. This is what he said: “They murdered him. They murdered him in cold blood. Get it out there. Tell the people what they did.”’

Coming… the Zika Virus

USA Today wrote on January 27:

“U.S. public health officials must prepare now for the inevitable arrival of Zika virus, a mosquito-borne infection that has spread to 21 countries in the Americas and poses particular danger to pregnant women, health experts said. The virus is expected to spread to the United States and every country in the Western hemisphere where the Aedes mosquitoes are known to live…  Aedes mosquitoes, which spread the virus, live in every Western hemisphere country but Canada and Chile.

“International air travel will help the virus spread quickly…  Zika doesn’t spread from person to person, but people infected while traveling can spread the virus in the USA if they are bitten by local mosquitoes, which then may spread the infection here… The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a travel alert, warning pregnant women to avoid travel to the 21 countries where Zika is spreading…

“Communities also need to ramp up their mosquito control efforts by spraying and getting rid of standing water… The government of El Salvador has urged women to postpone pregnancies for two years, a move that has been viewed as extreme by most people in the public health community. About half of pregnancies in the United States are unplanned. Scientists have known about Zika virus since the 1940s, but it was not considered a serious threat until a few months ago. That’s when Brazil reported an enormous increase in the number of babies born with microcephaly, a fetal defect that results in small heads and incomplete brain development…

“Scientists don’t know why Zika is spreading so quickly or why the outbreak has been particularly bad in Brazil…”

A Dangerous New Game for Teens?

The website of nbcsandiego reported on January 27:

“A dangerous new game becoming popular among teens sent a 14-year-old Washington resident to the hospital with 48 stitches, a shattered eye socket and a brain aneurism. [The teen] was severely injured playing the ‘Duct Tape Challenge,’ a trend circulating on social media in which the participant is taped up and is recorded on video trying to break free. Whoever removes the tape the fastest ‘wins’ the challenge…

“[He] was standing while taped up when he lost his balance. The fall caused [him] to hit his head… [He] suffered extensive facial injuries. After a three-hour surgery, [he] was left with metal plates and screws, and was on a temporary ventilator after the operation. His left eye socket shattered, and his facial injuries required 48 stitches and caused a substantial scar.

“Doctors are still unsure if [the teen] will be able to see out of his left eye… [The teen’s mother] who hadn’t heard of the ‘Duct Tape Challenge’ prior to her son’s injuries, wants to use [the teen’s] story as an opportunity to shed light on the dangers of these seemingly harmless viral games.”

Biggest Plague of Locusts in 60 Years in Argentina

The New York Times wrote on January 25:

“Farmers and fumigators in Argentina are running out of time as they scramble to control the country’s worst plague of locusts in more than half a century, officials warned on Monday… when they will then threaten to devour crops like sunflowers and cotton, and grasslands for cattle grazing. ‘It’s the worst explosion in the last 60 years,’ Diego Quiroga, the agriculture agency’s chief of vegetative protection, said in a telephone interview. ‘It’s impossible to eradicate; the plague has already established itself. We’re just acting to make sure it’s the smallest it can be and does the least damage possible.’

“Small pockets of locusts, which first appeared last June, at the start of winter in the Southern Hemisphere, have spread across an area of northern Argentina about the size of Delaware. The mild and rainy winter here created comfortable breeding conditions for the locusts; their surge outpaced the ability of the authorities to control the spread of the insects.

“Farmers last year reported locust clouds that were more than four miles long and nearly two miles high…”

Young Icelanders Do Not Believe in the God of the Bible

The Washington Post wrote on January 23:

“If you happen to have the chance to talk to young Icelanders about their religious beliefs, be prepared for a surprise. Exactly zero percent of respondents in a recent survey said they believe that God created the Earth. Only 20 years ago, nearly 90 percent of all Icelanders were religious believers. Today, less than 50 percent are…

“Iceland is distinct from much of the rest of the world… In the United States… 28 percent of Americans between 18 and 29 said they believed that God created ‘humans in present form within the last 10,000 years.’ The numbers might not be directly comparable because some Christians believe both in the Big Bang theory and God’s role. But even as the number of young believers in the United States declines, Christianity has maintained a strong influence there.

“So, why are young Icelanders so different from much of the rest of the world?… the Evangelical Lutheran Church is still the country’s declared state church. Solveig Anna Boasdottir, a professor at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Iceland… said that about 40 percent of the country’s younger generation still consider themselves Christian — but none of them believe that God created the Earth…

“Most experts, however, would agree that… the Evangelical Lutheran Church’s influence is… rapidly diminishing in Iceland… As of last year, about 75 percent of Iceland’s inhabitants were registered members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. However, as recent polls suggest, a significant number consider themselves to be non-believers or atheists…  all Icelanders — even atheists — have to pay a tax that is distributed among 40 religious institutions, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church…

“But last year, thousands of Icelanders suddenly joined the ancient Zuist movement — a religion centered on worshiping Sumerian gods. Within two weeks, almost one percent of the country’s population (about 3,000 people) had signed up. Some of the new Zuist members might have been less interested in the movement’s spiritual goals than in an announcement that the Zuist church would pay its members the amount of money they were taxed (about $80 per year).”

Following Viking explorations, Iceland was quickly settled by Norwegians, descendants of “Benjamin,” one of the “lost ten tribes” of the ancient House of Israel.