Trump Bash at McCain Funeral
The Associated Press reported on September 1:
“John McCain’s daughter opened his memorial service by posing her father’s legacy as a direct challenge to President Donald Trump, setting a tone that echoed the senator’s own fighting spirit as former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush eulogized him Saturday at the Washington National Cathedral. Bush and Obama, both challenged by McCain in their bids for the White House, drew on the senator’s legacy at home and abroad to talk of the nation’s values in remarks that at times seemed a clear rebuke of Trump and his brand of politics.
“Obama spoke of the long talks he and McCain would have privately in the Oval Office and the senator’s understanding that America’s security and influence came not from ‘our ability to bend others to our will’ but universal values of rule of law and human rights. ‘So much of our politics, our public life, our public discourse can seem small and mean and petty, tracking in bombast and insult and phony controversies and manufactured outrage,’ Obama said in another not-so-veiled nod to Trump. ‘It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough but in fact is born in fear. John called on us to be bigger than that. He called on us to be better than that.’
“Bush said one of the great gifts in his life was becoming friends with his former White House rival. He said they would in later years recall their political battles like former football players remembering the big game. But mostly Bush recalled a champion for the ‘forgotten people’ at home and abroad whose legacy will serve as a reminder, even in times of doubt, of the power of America as more than a physical place but a ‘carrier of human aspirations.’…
“Trump was not on hand for the ceremony, after McCain’s family made clear he was not invited. But Meghan McCain made sure Trump was part of the memorial in another way, leveling pointed criticism at the president in her eulogy. ‘We gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness — the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly, nor the opportunistic appropriation of those who lived lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served,’ she said, her voice first choking back tears then raising to anger. Later, she said to applause, ‘The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great.’
“In another clear swipe at Trump, she said some resented her father for being ‘a great fire who burned bright’ and what he revealed about their own characters. Those critics, she said, still have an opportunity to emulate her father’s legacy.
“Those gathered Saturday morning to eulogize the six-term senator included three former presidents, scores of members of Congress, current and former world leaders and family and friends. Among those in the front row were Barack and Michelle Obama, George and Laura Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as Dick Cheney and Al Gore… ‘His death seems to have reminded the American people that these values are what makes us a great nation, not the tribal partisanship and personal attack politics that have recently characterized our life,’ said former Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, a longtime friend and fellow global traveler who McCain once considered as his vice presidential running mate…
“Two of [Trump’s] top aides, White House chief of staff John Kelly and Defense Secretary James Mattis, flanked Cindy McCain as she placed the wreath at the memorial and [joined] the service. Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner [also] attended…”
Also, Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, attended; and others spoke as well, such as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who gave a short address by quoting a passage from the Bible. Especially Graham made recent headlines when he criticized Trump for the “disturbing” way with which he “remembered” McCain after his death, stating, according to Newsmax, dated August 30: “You’re going to have to be a big man in a big office. John McCain was a big man, worthy of a big country. Mr. President, you need to be the big man that the presidency requires.”
In an obvious reply to Meghan McCain’s [questionable] comment that America always was great and does not need to be made great again, Breitbart pointed out on September 3 that Ronald Reagan used the phrase, “Make America Great Again,” on Labor Day 1980: “Ronald Reagan kicked off his 1980 campaign for the presidency on the banks of the Hudson River, overlooking the Statue of Liberty, on Labor Day in 1980 with a promise to ‘make America great again.’ Standing side-by-side with the father of Poland’s Solidarity movement, Lech Walesa, Reagan proclaimed that ‘where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.’ Reagan wrapped up his speech with words that will sound familiar today: ‘Let us pledge to each other, with this Great Lady looking on, that we can, and so help us God, we will make America great again.’”
On a lighter note, here are some funny excerpts from former Sen. Joe Lieberman’s speech:
“Personally, I can tell you that [he] was a real friend in accommodating what were to him my unusual practices as a religiously observant Jew, whether it was walking with me on a Saturday to an important meeting [orthodox Jews don’t use their cars or public transportation on the Sabbath, but they rather choose to walk] or turning down a popular Friday night dinner invitation at the Munich security conference we went to every year because it was too far to walk, we would stay in the hotel and have what John learned to call our shalom dinners. With John they weren’t that peaceful. John naturally in doing these wonderful acts of friendship grumbled all the way about what I was putting him through, you know. Right now I think he is probably deriving some pleasure from the fact it turned out his funeral was held on a Saturday and I had to walk to get here. I’m sure if he were here now, he would tell me that was divine justice.
“He ultimately as he did with so much of his life turned these interfaith interferences into a truly hilarious comedy routine. It began with a solemn pronouncement by John that he was converting to Judaism. Then he explained less solemnly ‘I do this not because of any particularly liking for the religion, it is just that for so many years I had to go along with all of Joe’s religious nonsense, I might as well convert and get the benefits.’”
The problem is, of course, that Joe Lieberman’s “religious nonsense” was and is not in accordance with biblical injunctions or teachings.
Trump vs. Woodward
Deutsche Welle wrote on September 5:
“Veteran journalist Bob Woodward’s new book that describes scenes of chaos in the White House left US President Donald Trump fuming on Wednesday. The book draws on hundreds of hours of taped interviews with current and former aides and officials to paint a damning portrait of the Trump administration. Excerpts from the 420-page book, to be released next week, have been published by various US news outlets. In the book, Woodward reports:
“Top administration staff enacted an ‘administrative coup d’etat’ by frequently hiding documents, or secretly preventing Trump from acting on impulses and causing disaster. Chief of staff John Kelly doubted the integrity of Trump’s mental faculties, declaring during one meeting, ‘We’re in Crazytown’ and calling Trump an ‘idiot.’ Trump wanted to order the assassination of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Defense Secretary James Mattis assured Trump he would get right on it but then told a senior aide they’d do nothing of the kind. Mattis told ‘close associates that the president acted — and had the understanding of — a fifth- or sixth-grader,’ after Trump raged about the cost of the US military presence in South Korea. Trump’s former lawyer in the Russia probe, John Dowd, thought the chances of Trump perjuring himself during an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller were so high that he told him not to testify. ‘Don’t testify. It’s either that or an orange jumpsuit,’ Dowd is quoted as saying. He later called Trump ‘a… liar.’ Trump called Attorney General Jeff Sessions ‘mentally retarded’ and ‘a dumb southerner.’
“Trump insisted he’s ‘the exact opposite’ of the book’s portrayal of him, complaining on Twitter that people can ‘get away with’ such depictions and suggested changing libel laws. He later [said:] ‘It’s just another bad book. He’s had a lot of credibility problems.’ He then suggested Woodward could have made the whole thing up. Several officials quoted in the book issued denials, with Kelly calling the book ‘total BS’ and Mattis labeling it ‘fiction.’ Dowd denied saying Trump would end up in an orange jumpsuit. The US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, cast doubt on the account about Assad. Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: ‘This book is nothing more than fabricated stories, many by former disgruntled employees, told to make the president look bad.’
“In a statement to The Washington Post, Woodward said, ‘I stand by my reporting.’
“… Woodward is one of America’s most respected journalists, with his reporting on the Watergate scandal bringing down President Richard Nixon. Trump himself had previously endorsed his credibility, saying in 2013 ‘Only the Obama WH can get away with attacking Bob Woodward.’… Several damaging accounts of chaos in the White House have been published in recent months, most notably Michael Wolff’s ‘Fire and Fury.’ But Woodward’s account will be particularly difficult to counter as it is based on recorded interviews and comes from a highly respected investigative reporter… The book, titled Fear: Trump in the White House, is scheduled for release on Tuesday, September 11.”
The Week added on September 5:
“President Trump pushed back against excerpts of veteran Washington journalist Bob Woodward’s new book, Fear, claiming statements from Defense Secretary James Mattis and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly ‘refuted and discredited’ the book. ‘Their quotes were made up frauds, a con on the public,’ Trump tweeted. He also denied saying Attorney General Jeff Sessions was ‘mentally retarded’ with the accent of a ‘dumb Southerner.’ Kelly and Mattis denied calling Trump an ‘idiot’ and a ‘liar’ with little grasp of global affairs. The book also quotes Trump as saying that condemning white supremacists was his ‘biggest… mistake’ as president, and telling Mattis he wanted to… ‘kill’ Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.”
Reuters and The Algemeiner wrote on September 5:
“Israel’s intelligence minister said on Wednesday he had no knowledge of close ally US President Donald Trump ever ordering the killing of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad… While formally neutral on the 7-year civil war in neighboring Syria, Israel has carried out scores of air strikes against suspected attempts by Assad’s Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah allies to set up permanent posts or advanced arms.
“Under decades of Assad family rule, Syria has maintained a Cold War-style hostility toward Israel. Katz said Israel did not see a better alternative to Assad among Syrian rebel groups…”
Don’t Confuse God’s Kingdom with Today’s Politics
Christianity Today wrote on August 31:
“In a Monday meeting with evangelical leaders at the White House, President Trump reportedly warned of violence against conservative Christians if the GOP loses in November. As evangelicals, we would do well to correct the president on this point. If an election can cause us to lose everything, what is it exactly that we have in the first place?… the church does not preach the gospel at the pleasure of any administration or decline to preach it at another administration’s displeasure…
“Something tremendous is at stake here: whether evangelical Christians place their faith more in Caesar and his kingdom than in Christ and his reign. On that one, we do have everything to lose—this November and every other election cycle…
“Let’s face it. Liberal and conservative, Catholic and Protestant, have courted political power and happily allowed themselves to be used by it. This always happens when the church confuses the kingdom of Christ with the kingdoms of this present age…
“At his trial, Jesus told Pontius Pilate that he was indeed a king—but the heir to a greater throne than the Roman prefect could imagine… every New Testament command on the subject calls us to love and pray for our enemies… In his Great Commission, Jesus gave authority to the church to make disciples, not citizens; to proclaim the gospel, not political opinions; to baptize people in [better: into] the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, not in the name of America or a political party; and to teach everything that he delivered, not our own personal and political priorities…
“Anyone who believes, much less preaches, that evangelical Christians are ‘one election away from losing everything’ in November has forgotten how to sing the psalmist’s warning, ‘Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save’ (Ps. 146:3).”
We completely agree with the above-quoted statements and observations.
Displacing the US Dollar
Project Syndicate wrote on September 3:
“The benefits [of the US dollar] are diminishing with the rise of the euro and China’s renminbi as competing reserve currencies. And now US President Donald Trump’s misguided trade wars and anti-Iran sanctions will accelerate the move away from the dollar… The euro is the dollar’s main competitor, with the renminbi coming in a distant third.
“The US gains… important economic benefits from the dollar’s key currency role. [One] is the ability to borrow abroad in dollars. When a government borrows in a foreign currency, it can go bankrupt; that is not the case when it borrows in its own currency…
“America’s monetary stewardship has stumbled badly over the years, and Trump’s misrule could hasten the end of the dollar’s predominance… Just as Brexit is undermining the City of London, Trump’s ‘America First’ trade and financial policies will weaken the dollar’s role and that of New York’s role as the global financial hub…
“Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, recently declared Germany’s interest in establishing a European payments system independent of the US [calling it] ‘indispensable.’…
As we have announced for many years, the euro is predestined to become the strongest currency in the world. We have also stated very clearly that President Trump was placed in charge of the USA to accelerate its downfall.
Chemnitz Symptom for Growing Polarization in Germany over Merkel’s Immigration Policy
The New York Times wrote on August 31:
“Waving German flags, with some flashing Nazi salutes, the angry mob made its way through the streets, chasing after dark-skinned bystanders… A Syrian refugee and father of two… watched horrified from a friend’s fourth-floor balcony. They were hunting in packs for immigrants just like him, he said. ‘Like wolves.’
“For a few perilous hours over two days this week, the mob owned the streets of Chemnitz where anger exploded after word spread that an Iraqi and a Syrian asylum seeker were suspected in a knife attack that killed a German man early Sunday.
“Chemnitz, a city of some 250,000 in eastern Germany, has a history of neo-Nazi protests. Usually they draw a few hundred from the fringes of society… The crowd this time was 8,000-strong. Led by several hundred identifiable neo-Nazis, it appeared to be joined by thousands of ordinary citizens…
“The city had never seen anything like this — and, to some degree, neither had post-World War II Germany. The rampage now stands as a high-water mark in the outpouring of anti-immigrant hatred that has swelled as Germany struggles to absorb the nearly one million asylum seekers who arrived in the country after Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to open the borders in 2015.
“That decision sharply divided Germany, with critics soon arguing that Ms. Merkel’s administration had lost control of the situation. Three years later, what the government is struggling to control is an anti-immigrant backlash. Neo-Nazis are growing bolder and stronger, and they are better organized…”
The Associated Press wrote on September 2:
“Germany’s foreign minister [Heiko Maas] told his fellow countrymen Sunday they’re too lazy when it comes to battling racism and fighting for democracy… ‘Our generation was given freedom, rule of law and democracy as a present. We didn’t have to fight for it; (now) we’re taking it too much for granted.’
“Maas’ comments followed Saturday’s demonstrations by about 4,500 far-right protesters in Chemnitz, who were rallying against migration… 4,000 leftist protesters also marched through the city in a counter-protest, and 1,800 police officers were deployed to keep the groups apart…
“The tension that has built up over the past week in Chemnitz, reflects the growing polarization over Germany’s ongoing effort to come to terms with an influx of more than 1 million refugees and migrants seeking jobs since 2015…”
The clashes between extremists from the right and from the left remind us of the violent situation in Germany when Hitler was coming to power. Some commentators in the international press have already pointed out this frightening parallel. Note the next articles as well.
Downplaying the Chemnitz Debacle?
Deutsche Welle reported on September 5:
“Saxony’s state premier Michael Kretschmer [a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU)] has claimed that reports of mob violence at anti-immigrant protests in the city of Chemnitz were exaggerated… ‘One thing is clear. There was no mob, there was no hunt and there were no pogrom in Chemnitz,’ said Kretschmer… [He] condemned the way events in the city had been characterized by media outside Saxony, saying it was ‘astonishing that those who are so far away have passed a particularly sweeping and harsh judgment on this city.’
“… Chancellor Merkel appeared to contradict her party colleague’s assessment of the situation. ‘We saw pictures that very clearly revealed hate and thereby also the persecution of innocent people. One must distance oneself from that,’ said Merkel… Meanwhile, the state premier’s comments drew direct criticism from political opponents. Ralf Stegner, deputy leader of the Social Democrats (SPD), told Germany’s mass-circulation Bild newspaper that Kretschmer was pandering to the right. ‘The CDU in Saxony has apparently not understood that there is no use in playing up to the right. If Mr. Kretschmer still doesn’t understand that, then he is beyond help.’
“Annalena Baerbock, co-leader of Germany’s Green party, accused Kretschmer of not taking the situation seriously enough. ‘By downplaying this, Mr. Kretschmer is just continuing to look the other way, which is exactly what led to Chemnitz. There is obviously a serious problem with the right wing,’ Baerbock told Bild.”
The Good and Bad Germans
Politico wrote on September 4:
“When right-wing mobs marauded through the east German town of Chemnitz last week, attacking foreigners and doing the Hitler salute, Germans elsewhere made sure to put things into context. ‘Saxony again!’ they said, wrote and tweeted. The conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung asked, ‘Is Saxony still a part of Germany?’ Der Spiegel put the word ‘Saxony’ on its cover, with big letters turning into brown, old-German type (translation: Nazi type). A leftist columnist for the magazine suggested sarcastically that Saxony should secede from the country.
“At a time when right-wing populism is on the rise across Germany, the eastern state of Saxony has gotten a particularly bad name. Chemnitz is only the latest in a series of attacks. The towns of Heidenau, Freital and Bautzen have all acquired notoriety for similar reasons…
“Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the rift between the east and west Germany is still palpable — and it keeps evolving. East Germans who struggled after 1989 have long mourned the end of the socialist German Democratic Republic. But lately Ostalgie, the eastern yearning for life under socialism, has found its match in a new variety of Westalgie, a western yearning for a Germany stripped of the east…
“The good Germans in the west… are deeply confused by the rise of right-wing violence… they blame the easterners. They will admit grudgingly that some right-wing violence occurs in western states as well — and then add that Saxony or Mecklenburg-Vorpommern are far worse. The Federal Republic of Germany, they say, would have been better off if the country had not been reunified. That’s wishful thinking. After three decades, the lives of people in the east and west are far too interconnected to allow for such a distinction…
“The notion of a good and a bad Germany is pretty old. It’s found in oft-made juxtapositions: Goethe and Goebbels, Heine and Hitler, Beethoven and Buchenwald. The implication is that the Germans are a special people, capable of extreme good as well as of extreme bad. That may be true. But any suggestion that a good Germany can be found in the west and a bad Germany somewhere further east is stupid. If more and more east Germans embrace the idea that they are the bad Germans, things will get much worse — and not just in Saxony…”
In addition, please note this article by Deutsche Welle, reporting on September 6:
“A survey in Germany reveals… a marked difference between Germany’s western states and those in the east on whether concerns about migration were being taken seriously by the German government… Worries about the government’s approach to migration were high across the board, with 49 percent of Germans overall feeling that the matter was not being properly addressed… 46 percent of respondents in the former West German states and 66 percent of respondents in the former East German states [were] saying they were not satisfied.”
Controversial Verdict against Afghan Murderer of German Teen
Deutsche Welle reported on September 3:
“An asylum-seeker, thought to be from Afghanistan, has been given an 8-and-a-half-year prison sentence for the murder of a teenage German girl… in the town of Kandel in December last year. The murder had been seized upon by many opponents of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee policy to support their anti-immigration stance…
“Fifteen-year-old Mia V. was stabbed to death in a drugstore by her ex-boyfriend Abdul D… The teen was stabbed seven times with a kitchen knife that had a 20-centimeter (7.9-inch) blade. According to prosecutors, the two dated for several months until Mia V. ended the relationship in early December. After the breakup, both she and her parents went to the police about Abdul D.’s harassing and threatening behavior. Prosecutors believe he acted out of jealousy and was seeking revenge for the breakup.
“Abdul D. entered Germany in the spring of 2016 and was registered as an unaccompanied minor. He first lived in a juvenile care institution in the Germersheim district in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. He was later transferred to a supervised living group in the town of Neustadt and attended school in Kandel, where he met Mia V. As authorities believe Abdul D. was underage at the time of the attack, he was tried as a minor. The maximum penalty for murder under German juvenile law is 10 years.
“However, prosecutors have cast doubt over Abdul D.’s age. Although he says he was 15 when the stabbing occurred, an expert medical assessment ordered by the public prosecutor’s office said that he is likely between 17 and 20 years old… When asked why Abdul D. was convicted of bodily harm along with the murder charge, the court’s press spokesman… said he couldn’t give any further information about the case at this time, as it was closed to the public due to the defendant’s status as a minor…
“The case sparked several months of anti-immigrant rallies and counterprotests in Kandel, a small town near the French border. The population of around 9,000 has been regularly swelled since January as demonstrators from leftist and right-wing groups have descended on the town. Hundreds of people took part in right-wing protest on Saturday… Dozens of counterprotesters from leftist… groups as well as local residents were also present. The focus of the right-wing protests has… become platforms for anti-refugee and anti-Islam sentiments, with demonstrators blaming the media and German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government.”
Bild wrote on September 3:
“These are the verdicts which make people doubt judges and the justice system… and that justice is pronounced in our name. The guilt of Mia’s murderer has been proven without a doubt. The court even found that Abdul D. stabbed the 15-year old girl with malice and evil motives. Our laws do not know worse crimes. It is totally incomprehensible why a more serious punishment was not given.
“Even though Abdul D. was, in reliance on a medical assessment, in all likelihood 20 years old, and lied to and deceived this country about his true age in order to gain admission…his deed was tried based on juvenile law. He is a murderer, a liar and he even attacked an official in the court house… How and on what basis the judges could find mitigating circumstances, we will never know. The judgment will not be published because of juvenile law. Maybe that is better this way, because nobody would understand it anyhow.”
Sweden’s Upcoming Election in Light of Wildfires and Refugee Crisis
The Local wrote on September 5:
“Sweden is heading for a general election on September 9, with… pressing political issues driving the agenda… More than 50 wildfires raged across Sweden during the summer of 2018 – the warmest summer since 1756… The gravity of the situation brought environmental questions to the fore…
“But the event most defining these elections is the refugee crisis. In the autumn of 2015, Sweden opened its doors to asylum seekers from Syria and elsewhere, taking in more than 100,000 people over a period of just a few months. Managing the influx of people proved difficult… This effectively closed down Sweden’s southern border with Denmark and temporarily suspended the Schengen agreement, which allows free movement through continental Europe…
“The refugee crisis has had a major impact on Swedish politics… The political field has been divided into those who are in favour of a more generous immigration approach (Social Democrats, the Left, the Greens and the Centre Party) and those who prefer a stricter policy (the Conservatives, the Christian Democrats, the Sweden Democrats and to some extent, the Liberals). Disagreements over immigration may even lead to a split within the centre-right Alliance that held power in two consecutive governments (2006-2010 and 2010-2014), with the Centre Party defecting from the group position to embrace a more restrictive immigration approach…
“Integrating non-EU migrants into the labour market has been a slow process. And, if you add into the mix the generous welfare benefits traditionally provided by the Swedish state (long parental leave, free education at all levels, subsidised healthcare), the dilemma faced by Swedish politicians is evident. The biggest issue of this (and coming) elections will really be the future of the welfare state. Parties must either find creative solutions to finance public services – or propose cutting some of them.”
Big Brother: Google, Amazon and Facebook in Cahoots with Your Bank!
Gizmodo wrote on August 31:
“… until recently, you could live without fear that some multibillion-dollar Silicon Valley giant would buy up your banking data in order to serve you more effective ads. Based on new details about an apparent arrangement between Google and Mastercard, those days are over…
“This is a… bombshell… Thanks in part to heavy government regulation, your credit card and banking data has long been private. If you wanted to spend $98 at Sephora on a Tuesday afternoon, that transaction was between you, your bank, and Sephora. It now appears that Google has found a way to weasel its way into the data pipeline that connects consumers and their purchases…
“But when you consider everything else that Google knows about you, the proposition becomes more Orwellian. Google told Gizmodo in a statement, also shared with Bloomberg, that it encrypts and anonymizes the credit card transaction data that it’s using with the new ad tool. There’s no getting around the fact that Google becomes a more powerful, all-seeing ad engine when it can see specific details about people’s spending habits, even if they’re anonymized and used in aggregate, as Google says the data it gets from Mastercard is. This future—one where your email, your search history, your social connections, and now, your spending habits—is one that we should really be scared of…
“It’s not so much that Google has been using credit card data to help advertisers run more effective ads. It’s that Google is doing these things on a tremendous scale, and the full nature of what it’s been doing was kept secret. The reported arrangement between Google and Mastercard immediately drew comparisons to the recent saga of Facebook reportedly meeting with banks in an attempt to gain access to its users’ private financial data. According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook wanted detailed financial information, like checking account balances and even individual transactions. Sources said that Facebook wanted to build chatbots for Messenger so that people could ask a robot simple banking questions, like their current checking account balance. Realistically, Facebook could be doing a lot more with that kind of data…
“Amazon certainly knows a lot about the things we buy, and we learned earlier this year that the online retail giant was exploring the possibility of getting into the banking business itself. The Wall Street Journal has also reported that Amazon, like Facebook and Google, has had conversations with banks about gaining access to personal financial information…”
It is truly appalling what is going on behind the scenes, and to what extent BANKS are again “participating villains” in this despicable SECRET scheme with Silicon Valley giants.
Greatest Crisis for Pope Francis
The Guardian wrote on September 3:
“Ever since he was elected as the leader of the world’s Roman Catholics, Pope Francis has been the target of conservative adversaries deeply opposed to… his efforts to reform the church. But in the past week, the war at the heart of the Vatican has exploded into the open, plunging Francis into the worst crisis of his five-year papacy. Cardinals and bishops have openly fired shots; accusations of lies, treachery, score-settling, character assassination and fake news have engulfed the global church…
“Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 77, a former Vatican ambassador to the US and a conservative within the church, said the pope knew that Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, ‘was a corrupt man, [but] he covered for him to the bitter end’. Viganò named a string of cardinals and archbishops who he said also knew about the McCarrick claims. ‘Corruption has reached the very top of the church’s hierarchy’; Francis should resign, he said…
“Viganò’s claims – timed when Francis was already vulnerable – unleashed opposing forces within the church. The old guard of the Curia – the Vatican’s governing bodies, a hotbed of power struggles, intrigue and paranoia – bitterly resents Francis’s efforts to root out what they view as centuries of clerical tradition and he sees as hypocrisy, narcissism and ‘spiritual Alzheimer’s’… Francis loyalists leaped to his defence and lambasted the former diplomat… But others said Viganò’s allegations must be taken seriously…
“In the coming weeks, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the US bishops’ conference, is expected to travel to Rome to press for an Apostolic Visitation – a high-level Vatican inquiry – into the McCarrick case… Any such inquiry is bound to investigate who knew what and when – right up to the Vatican and the [pope] himself. But scepticism about the integrity of a Vatican investigation that could uncover wrongdoing at the pinnacle of the church is inevitable.
“The pope has said little apart from appealing to people to make their own judgment. According to his secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, his mood is ‘serene’ in the face of raging controversy…”
These events are highly remarkable. It remains to be seen as to how this pope’s future role will unfold.
Catholic Church for Unified Europe
On September 1, 2018, Deutsche Welle quoted the following comments by German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Freising and Chairman of the German Roman Catholic Bishops’ Conference:
“Faith tells us we belong to a human family. Patriotism is good, but nationalism is not Catholic. I agree with Franz-Josef Strauss, who has always said: Bavaria is our home, Germany is our fatherland, Europe is our future.
“The path we have taken in the last 50 or 60 years since the Treaty of Rome was also morally connoted. That is why the church has always viewed the unity of Europe positively, even today. The work of unification began with a longing for peace and reconciliation. Let us not forget: Nationalism is one of the biggest causes of war… the church must never cease working or doing something for the unity of Europe.”
The Catholic Church has been heavily involved, from the very outset, in helping to revive, one last time, the ancient Holy Roman Empire in Europe.
Bavarian Conservative Manfred Weber Next Head of European Commission?
Euractiv wrote on August 30:
“Angela Merkel has given her backing to fellow German conservative Manfred Weber’s bid to front the centre-right’s campaign in next year’s European Parliament elections… If other member parties follow the chancellor in backing Weber… he would be front-runner to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker as head of the European Commission. That would make the 46-year-old Bavarian the EU’s day-to-day leader as it attempts to navigate a world in which a Donald Trump-led United States is seen as an unreliable partner, it faces a stiff challenge from Russian and Chinese rivals and reinvents itself following Britain’s departure from the bloc…
“It has been decades since a German has headed the Brussels-based Commission, whose 30,000 staff draft and enforce legislation and has been instrumental in driving the process of European integration since the bloc’s beginnings in 1957… While Weber is an ally of Merkel, his Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) party is well to her right on social policy, and he is seen as an ally of strongman East European leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán…
“Weber holds fast to conservative values and is simultaneously pushing for an ‘aggressive and positive Europe policy’ from the CSU…Weber has aligned with a majority in the EPP against Nord Stream 2, despite the fact that the government in Berlin strongly backs this project to bring Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. Conversely, Weber is a strong backer of the Southern Gas Corridor, a project to bring Azeri gas via Turkey to Europe.”
Euractiv added on August 31:
“Blessed by Chancellor Angela Merkel and backed by big national delegations, Germany’s CSU heavyweight Manfred Weber is expected to soon confirm his candidacy for the post of the new European Commission president, with migration emerging as the top issue on his agenda… Migration is a top concern for… [Austrian] Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, whose country is chairing the EU’s rotating presidency.
“Weber advocated for giving ‘billions of dollars’ in aid to North African countries to cooperate on the migration issue, as Europe already did with Turkey. The goal would be to set up centres in third countries to see who is entitled to asylum protection…
“Weber could have the support of EPP [European People’s Party] members from Germany, Spain, Ireland, Croatia and France, among others… Candidates can throw their hat into the ring between 15 September and 16 October. The party will pick its Spitzenkandidat at a congress in Helsinki in early November.”
In a Fit of Rage, Putin Admitted Russia’s Responsibility for Ukrainian Uprising
Business Insider wrote on September 3:
“Russian President Vladimir Putin became so enraged during a shouting match with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that he revealed he was lying about Russia’s role in a military uprising in eastern Ukraine, former French President Francois Hollande wrote in a book published earlier this year about his time in office.
“In 2014, Russia illegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine and began to support separatists in the eastern part of the country through information warfare, direct shipments of weapons, and the deployment of Russian fighters posing as Ukrainian separatists… Russia denied responsibility…
“But in a heated argument with Poroshenko at the 2015 talks to form the Minsk Agreement… ‘Poroshenko and Putin constantly raised their voices with each other. The Russian president was so worked up, that he started threatening to decisively crush his counterpart’s forces… This showed that there are Russian troops in eastern Ukraine. Putin suddenly realized, and got a grip on himself,’ Hollande wrote…
“Fighting continues in eastern Ukraine, with more than 10,000 dead. Russia still denies any official involvement in the fighting and remains under the sanctions imposed in 2014.”
This is interesting, as everybody should have known that Putin was lying when he denied Russia’s illegal involvement in Ukraine.
Terrible Atrocities by Myanmar Military
Reuters reported on September 3:
“A Myanmar judge on Monday found two Reuters journalists guilty of breaching a law on state secrets and jailed them for seven years, in a landmark case seen as a test of progress toward democracy in the Southeast Asian country… The verdict comes amid mounting pressure on the government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi over a security crackdown sparked by attacks by Rohingya Muslim insurgents on security forces in Rakhine State in west Myanmar in August 2017. More than 700,000 stateless Rohingya Muslims have fled into Bangladesh since then, according to U.N. agencies.
“The two reporters, who were investigating the killing by the security forces of Rohingya villagers at the time of their arrest, had pleaded not guilty… U.S. ambassador Scot Marciel said the ‘deeply troubling’ verdict could undermine the confidence the Myanmar people had in the justice system… British ambassador Dan Chugg, speaking on behalf of EU members, said the verdict had ‘dealt a hammer blow for the rule of law’. France said it deplored the prison sentences and that the convictions represented a serious violation of press freedom and the rule of law.
“In Bangladesh, Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, a media adviser to the prime minister, said it was ‘an open secret’ that anyone exposing ‘atrocities of the Myanmar army’ would be persecuted… A U.N mandated fact-finding mission said last week that Myanmar’s military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Muslim Rohingya with ‘genocidal intent’ and called for top generals to be prosecuted. Myanmar rejected the findings. The International Criminal Court is considering whether it has jurisdiction over events in Rakhine, while the United States, the European Union and Canada have sanctioned Myanmar military and police officers over the crackdown.”
Apart from being accused of mass murders, gang rapes and now a corrupt court system, it is appalling to contemplate that Myanmar’s leader had received the ‘honor” of being a “Nobel laureate,” showing the irrelevant mockery of these institutions.
Turkey—the “Sick Man of Europe”—Returns
Project Syndicate wrote on August 28:
“One of the great geopolitical issues in nineteenth-century Europe was the so-called Eastern Question. The Ottoman Empire, then known as the ‘sick man of Europe,’ was rapidly disintegrating…
‘[Now, modern] Turkey is quickly reclaiming its title as ‘the sick man of Europe.’ Given its strategic location and economic and human potential, the country should be moving toward a brilliant twenty-first-century future. Instead, it is marching backward toward the nineteenth century, under the banner of nationalism… Erdoğan, who assumed the presidency in 2014… failed… [He] has squandered a unique opportunity for both Turkey and the Muslim world generally. His country is now beset by a currency crisis… and it could even face the prospect of national bankruptcy… he risks destabilizing the Middle East even further…
“And yet Turkey’s strategic importance to Europe remains. Millions of EU citizens are of Turkish origin, and the country will continue to bridge the gap between East and West, North and South. Under Erdoğan’s regime, Turkey is no longer a prospective candidate for EU membership… a destabilized Turkey is the last thing Europe needs… Europe’s own security depends heavily on Turkey…”
And so, Europe will overlook dictator Erdogan’s many terrible atrocities, while collaborating with Turkey against Israel, as the Bible predicts.
African Swine Fever Coming Back
The Guardian wrote on September 3:
“In 1957, [African swine fever (ASF)] was introduced into Portugal, reportedly after infected airline food was fed as swill to pigs near Lisbon airport. The disease spread to Spain and France and took until the 1990s to eradicate through concerted surveillance and culling. In southern Spain, where ticks acted as an additional reservoir, old-fashioned farm buildings were destroyed and replaced with modern facilities to keep ticks out…
“This time the spread has been far more rapid… The current outbreak in central and eastern Europe began in January 2014, when cases were first reported in Lithuania, swiftly followed by outbreaks in Poland in February, and in Latvia and Estonia in June and September that year.
“Cases were also confirmed in the east of the Czech Republic in June 2017, and in Romania and Hungary earlier this year. More outbreaks have also been reported in Russia, Ukraine and Moldova. In recent weeks outbreaks have been reported in China, home of more than half the world’s pigs, which produces twice as much pork as the EU, and five times more than the United States.
“In Germany, farmers have called for a cull of 70% of the wild boar population, which is thought to be hundreds of thousands strong… They’re very successful animals with a range right across Asia and Europe. They can swim as well… In Denmark, a fence is planned along the border with Germany to prevent the migration of wild boars… it is only a matter of time until the disease reaches Denmark, a major pork exporter…
“ASF presents no risk to humans, but for pigs it is often fatal. With no effective treatment or vaccine, farmers can only guard against outbreaks using tight biosecurity measures and by adding anti-virus drugs into feed. Once it has been diagnosed, entire herds are preventatively culled. In both 2016 and 2017 more than 300,000 pigs were culled in attempts to control the spread of the disease.
“Transmission occurs only through direct contact with infected animals (alive or dead) or meat – the virus is not airborne. However, it is hardy. It can survive for up to 1,000 days in frozen meat and can persist for long periods in boar carcasses, on clothing, boots and soil…”
Of course, pigs were not created by God for human consumption. But in our God-defying world, one can easily contemplate the serious global economic consequences as ASF spreads.
Acknowledgement and Disclaimer
These Current Events are compiled and commented on by Norbert Link. We gratefully acknowledge the many contributions of news articles from our readership. The publication of articles in this section is not to be viewed as an endorsement or approval as to contents or accuracy of the selected articles, but they are published for the purpose of pointing at worldwide developments in the light of biblical end-time prophecy and godly instruction. Our own comments are provided in italics.
