“Let not your spirit be troubled on account of the times; For the Holy and Great One has appointed days for all things.”
(Enoch 92:2)
Let Not Your Spirit Be Troubled

• The Theological Dictionary of Princeton University (1830)

• Critical Commentary and Paraphrase on the Old and New Testament by Lowth and Lowman (1822)

• The American Biblical Repository (1840)

• Notes on the Revelation of St. John by Lowman (1773)

• The Christian Spectator, “The Monthly” (1885)

• Abridgement of Ecclesiastical History (1776)

• The Works of the Rev. P. Doddridge, DD (1804)

• The International Sunday School Lessons Pub (1878)

• Character and Prospects on the Church of Rome in Two Discourses by the Rev. William Mackray (1829)

• The Panoplist and Missionary Magazine (1809)

• Lectures on Romanism by Joseph F. Berg (1840)

• The Congregational Magazine for the Year (1834)

• The Presbyterian Magazine (1858)

  The complete list of ancients who believed 2016 pointed to the year when Antichrist would begin making himself known on the global scene and initiate a process ultimately leading to construction of the Third Temple as well as the Great Tribulation period can be found in the book Zenith 2016.

  Whether this will turn out to be connected to Donald Trump and the rabbis’ view of him as a modern Cyrus whose arrival heralds the Messianic era during which the Temple will be built is increasingly convincing, as the upcoming entries in this series hopefully convey.

  [I] Adam Eliyahu Berkowits, “Biblical Numerology Predicts Trump Will Usher in Messiah,” Breaking Israel News, May 16 2016, https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/67748/biblical-numerology-predicts-trump-will-usher-messiah/#YpPoq8q60l05J0SD.97.

  [ii] Bob Eschliman, “Rabbi Predicts Trump Will Win and Usher in the Second Coming,” Charisma News, November 4, 2016, http://www.charismanews.com/politics/elections/61031-rabbi-predicts-trump-will-win-and-usher-in-the-second-coming.

  [iii] Sam Kestenbaum, “Jewish Mystics Hope Trump’s Israel Visit Might ‘Raise the Temple,’” Israel Forward, May 22, 2017, http://forward.com/news/372256/for-jewish-mystics-trumps-israel-visit-part-of-messianic-process/.

  [iv] Hillel Fendel, “Sanhedrin to Trump-Putin: Fulfill Cyrus-like Role in Jerusalem,” November 15, 2016, http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/220289.

  [v] Sam Kestenbaum, “Why These Jewish Mystics Think God Helped Trump Win,” Israel Forward, November 15, 2016, http://forward.com/news/354530/why-these-jewish-mystics-think-god-helped-trump-win/.

  [vi] Thomas Horn, Saboteurs (Crane, MO: Defender Publishing, 2017) 80–84.

  [vii] Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz, “Sanhedrin Mints Silver Half-Shekel with Images of Trump and Cyrus,” Breaking Israel News, February 15, 2018, https://www.breakingisraelnews.com/102784/sanhedrin-temple-movement-issue-silver-half-shekel-images-trump-cyrus/

  [viii] “Islamic ‘Messiah’ al-Mahdi to Return by 2016, Followed By Jesus? Islamic ‘Messiah’ al-Mahdi to Return by 2016, Followed by Jesus?” Israel, Islam and the End Times, May 19, 2015, http://www.israelislamandendtimes.com/islamic-messiah-al-mahdi-to-return-by-2016-followed-by-jesus/. Accessed January 3, 2016.

  [ix] MCD Admin, “Prominent Rabbi Warns Friends Not to Leave Israel; ‘Messiah Is Here with Us Already,’” My Christian Daily, http://mychristiandaily.com/mcd/prominent-rabbi-warns-friends-not-to-leave-israel-messiah-is-here-with-us-already/.

  [x] J. R. Church, “The 800-Year-Old Prophecy of Rabbi Judah Ben Samuel,” Prophecy in the News, February 2010, 14.

  [xi] Clarence Goen, “Jonathan Edwards: A New Departure in Eschatology,” Church History 28, March 1, 1959, 29, 25–40.

  POLITICO

  Jared Kushner’s weeklong trip will include stops in Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

  Kushner to visit Mideast for peace plan push

  The president’s son-in-law will reveal significant details of the economic portion of the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan.

  By ELIANA JOHNSON

  February 7, 2019

  

  Jared Kushner will crisscross the Middle East later this month seeking buy-in for his peace plan from leaders throughout the region.

  During the trip, the president’s son-in-law will for the first time share significant details of the economic portion of the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan, whose development he has spent nearly two years overseeing.

  “Jared is going to present the economic plan to the region. The economic plan only works if the region supports it,” a senior administration official said Tuesday. "We understand that if the political aspect of it is not solid, the economic aspect is meaningless. But at the same time the political aspect will not succeed without a proper economic plan."

  The White House is preparing to release a finalized plan for a negotiated solution between Israel and the Palestinians in the coming months, administration officials said, though they stressed they are unlikely to do so before Israeli elections scheduled for April 9. The economic portion of the plan includes a package of public and private-sector investments in all sectors of the Palestinian economy.

  Kushner’s weeklong trip — which begins the last week of February — will include stops in Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Joining him will be Jason Greenblatt, the president’s Middle East envoy, the State Department’s Special Representative for Iran, Brian Hook, and Deputy Assistant to the President Avi Berkowitz. The trip was initially scheduled for January, but was pushed back because of the government shutdown, officials said. The administration is working to add two additional stops to the trip, but the itinerary will not include Israel or the Palestinian territories, officials said.

  The White House has tightly held details of the peace plan, which many Middle Eastern officials thought might be unveiled last year. President Donald Trump said in late September of last year that the plan would be released within four months, a timeline that proved optimistic.

  The forthcoming trip is intended in part to gauge regional reaction to the economic portion of the plan, which would create economic incentives — likely including job opportunities — for Palestinians.

  “Part of this is intended to show they’re really serious about presenting something,” said Dennis Ross, a veteran peace process negotiator. “I think the key is going to be Arab leaders being persuaded that the overall deal — not just the economic side but the political side — looks credible to them.”

  The incentives would have to overcome Palestinian hostility to Trump’s overtures, particularly since the Trump administration last year moved the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which the Palestinians do not recognize as Israel’s capital. The White House also evicted the Palestine Liberation Authority from its offices in Washington, D.C., last year as retribution for the Palestinians’ refusal to enter into direct talks with the Israelis.

  As a result, the Trump administration currently has no formal relationship with Palestinian leaders. Administration officials said the White House has informally consulted with several Palestinians to solicit their views, but conceded that none have a direct line to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has called Trump’s team too “biased” toward Israel to be a credible peace broker. White House officials nonetheless said they hope Abbas will come to the table to discuss the plan.

  "If regional leaders think our ideas offer a transformative vision for the Palestinians, for integrating the Palestinians and Israel into the region, and if they agree to financially support our plan — that would be a success," said a senior administration official.

  Kushner is also set to travel to a U.S.-hosted security conference in Warsaw, Poland, next week, where he is scheduled to sit down with World Economic Forum President Borge Brand and field questions on the peace plan, though White House officials said he is unlikely to divulge any details.

  ***

  THE JERUSALEM POST

  PALESTINIANS, JORDANIANS EXPAND ALLIANCE TO TORPEDO TRUMP'S PEACE PLAN

  The Palestinians and the Jordanians have set up a joint council for the administration of the Temple Mount and holy sites in Jerusalem.

  BY JERUSALEM POST STAFF

  FEBRUARY 18, 2019 17:57

  

  Jordan's King Abdullah meets Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas at the Royal Palace in Amman, Jordan March 12, 2018. . (photo credit: REUTERS/MOHAMMAD ABU GHOSH/POOL)

  The Palestinians and the Jordanians have set up a joint council for the administration of the Temple Mount and other Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem in an effort to preemptively torpedo the advancement of US President Donald Trump’s regional peace plan.
  Yoni Ben-Menachem, a veteran Arab affairs and diplomatic commentator for Israel radio and television and a senior Middle East analyst for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, revealed this information to Israel Hayom in an exclusive report.
  Ben-Menachem told the Hebrew daily that the move constitutes “a violation of the Oslo agreement and seriously harms Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem.”
  Senior Fatah officials confirmed that cooperation has been accelerated ahead of the peace plan, which Trump said he will reveal shortly after the April 9 elections in Israel.

  A senior Palestinian source told Israel Hayom that the establishment of the joint council is a practical step derived from the understandings reached by Jordanian King Abdullah and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in August 2017, following the crisis of the electronic security monitors, which Israel erected on the Temple Mount after two Israeli police officers were killed in a shooting attack.
  The first steps were taken only days ago and comes, according to the report. A senior Fatah official said the move was because the Jordanians and the Palestinians fear that within the framework of the regional peace plan, responsibility for the Temple Mount will be transferred to a joint Arab-Islamic council, granting Saudi Arabia official status around the al-Aqsa mosque.
  In contrast, a senior Arab diplomat told the Hebrew daily that the move was made with the agreement of Jordan and Saudi Arabia and was intended to soften Palestinian resistance to the peace plan.
  At the end of the month, American advisers Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt are scheduled to arrive in the Middle East to advance the regional peace plan. Abbas has himself already taken some steps to torpedo the plan.

  ***

  The Guardian

  Palestinians patrol Hebron after Israel ejects observer mission

  Volunteers in blue uniforms begin escorting Palestinian children past Israeli settlers to school

  Oliver Holmes in Jerusalem

  February 19, 2019

  

  The civilian patrol volunteers wear uniforms bearing the word ‘observer’. Photograph: Abed al-Hashlamoun/EPA

  Palestinian activists in the flashpoint city of Hebron have started patrols to prevent attacks by settlers after Israel’s widely criticised expulsion of an international observer mission.

  The Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) was first established more than two decades ago after a far-right Jewish extremist murdered 29 Muslims at a mosque in the city.

  TIPH has since monitored and documented altercations in the West Bank city, in particular between Palestinians, the Israeli army and members of a several hundred-strong ultranationalist settler movement who live in heavily fortified districts.

  The body’s forces, a team of 64 observers from Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey, had escorted Palestinian children who needed to walk past settler areas to get to school.

  “Their absence is a big gap,” said Issa Amro, a local activist leader who set up the civilian patrol of 18 volunteers, all wearing blue uniforms with the word “observer” written in English, Arabic and Hebrew. “We escort kids to schools, we try to document human rights violations using video cameras … we try to protect Palestinian homes,” he said.

  As soon as he began a week ago, Amro’s mission drew anger from settlers. He published a video of a woman slapping him and other volunteers being pushed around.

  More than 200,000 Palestinians live in Hebron, the occupied West Bank’s largest city. But the presence of settlers has effectively shut down local life in the main souk as army checkpoints cut off the area.

  Central to the volatility is Hebron’s leading holy site, which Jews call the Tomb of the Patriarchs while Muslims refer to it as the Ibrahimi mosque, after the patriarch Abraham, a key figure for both faiths.

  Last month, Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the mission’s mandate would not be renewed, saying Israel would not “allow the continuation of an international force that acts against us”.

  The move was interpreted as a nod to domestic far-right voters as Netanyahu seeks re-election in April. TIPH has been the focus of controversy in Israel recently after one of its observers was deported for slapping an Israeli childand another was filmed puncturing the tyres of a settler’s vehicle.

  The ejection of the observers drew widespread international condemnation. In a joint statement, TIPH member countries said it undermined one of the few established mechanisms for conflict resolution between Israelis and Palestinians. The EU said it risked further deteriorating the already fragile situation on the ground.

  Chris Eijkemans, the local representative for Oxfam, said the departure was “a dangerous green light for more violence”.

  Most world powers consider settlements to be illegal under international law, which forbids the transfer of civilians into occupied land. Settler violence against Palestinians living in the West Bank has been rising since the beginning of 2017, according to the UN. Incidents often follow attacks by Palestinians against Israelis.

  According to the UN’s office in the occupied Palestinian territories, a recent household survey conducted in one part of Hebron indicated that almost 70% of Palestinian families had been exposed to settler violence and harassment in the past three years.

  While TIPH observers were never authorised to interfere in incidents or disputes, they patrolled seven days a week and their mandate intended their presence to give “a feeling of security to the Palestinians of Hebron”.

  Amro says his volunteers are not as well trained as the TIPH, but more importantly, they do not have diplomatic backing. While Israeli soldiers could not force TIPH observers away from any areas of Hebron, his group has been banned from parts of the city after the army declared it a closed military zone.

  After the TIPH observers packed up, he said: “The soldiers are acting differently, the settlers are acting differently.”

  Hartsburg News

  148 nations disavow Jewish ties to Jerusalem, Temple Mount

  Posted by Staff Writer on February 14, 2019 at 7:00 pm

  The UN General Assembly in New York on Friday approved six anti-Israel resolutions including two that ignored Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.

  The primary resolution on Jerusalem, that passed 148-11 with 14 abstentions, also disavowed Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem.
  Both that text and a second more global one on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which passed 156-8, with 12 abstentions, spoke of Judaism’s most holy site – The Temple Mount – solely by its Muslim name of al-Haram al-Sharif.

  The votes comes as Israel is working to shore up international support for its sovereignty in Jerusalem.

  A third text, which was approved 99-10 with 66 abstentions,

  The United States, Canada and Australia voted against all six resolutions, which are the first batch of some 20 resolutions that the UNGA annually passes against Israel.

  “We live in a time of many crises, crises that are raging around the Middle East and around the world. It is a shame that rather than addressing these crises, the UN passes so many biased resolutions,” said Israeli Deputy Permanent Representative Noa Furman.

  She said she was particularly concerned by the two resolutions that ignored Jewish and Christian ties to the Temple Mount.
  “This omission was deliberate. It shows yet another instance of the Palestinian refusal to recognize the proven historical connection between Judaism, Christianity, the Temple Mount and Jerusalem as a whole.

  “The international community must stop participating in such a blatant denial of history. You must not permit these blatant attempts to delegitimize Israel,” Furman said.

  The European Union, which supported both texts, warned it could stop doing so unless more include language was used to reference holy sites in Jerusalem.

  Speaking on behalf of the EU, the Austrian representative said the EU stresses “the need for language on the holy sites of Jerusalem to reflect the importance and historical significance of the holy sites for the three monotheistic religions.”

  It added, “future choice of language may affect the EU’s collective support for the resolutions.”

  PLO Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour thanked UN member states for their support of texts that reference a two-state resolution to the conflict based on the pre-1967 lines with east Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.

  This “global consensus, which all of us have worked for, is still the cornerstone of finding a just and lasting peace to the conflict.”
  US representative Leslie Ordeman, who is deputy political coordinator, also spoke out against the texts.

  “We are disappointed that despite messages of support for reform, member states continue to single out Israel with these resolutions.

  “As the United States has repeatedly made clear, this dynamic is unacceptable. Again, we see resolutions that are quick to condemn all manner of Israeli actions, but say almost nothing about Palestinian terrorist attacks against innocent civilians. This is particularly acute now, when the rocket attacks on November 12 saw more projectiles fired on a single day than on any day since 2014.”

  Both Israel and the US took issue in particular with the two resolutions passed Friday that continued to support the work of the “Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People” and the “Division for Palestinian Rights.”

  “The Palestinians are the only actor in the UN system with a dedicated division within the UN Secretariat. The message that it sends is that the Palestinians never need to come back to the negotiating table – they can rely on flawed and biased mechanisms, such as these, to push their agenda,” he said.

  The material concerning the true location of Solomon's and Herod's Temples begins at the twenty-nine minute mark.

  Video

  STRANGE SOUNDS

  Biblical locust invasions spark UN warning for UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt

  February 18, 2019

  Massive swarms of locusts are bearing down on Saudi Arabia and Egypt as they spread rapidly along the shores of the Red Sea, the United Nations has warned. Breeding along the coasts of Eritrea and Sudan, the swarms are spreading farther afield, with at least one having crossed over the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia in mid-January and more a week later. Swarms also went north along the Red Sea towards Egypt.

  Article and video

  Solitary Purdah

  Murder of the Unborn now Legal for a New Born

  

  Genocide has become the law of the land since 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, the US Abortion Clock.org report 61,061,720 abortions. Now, New York State passed the Reproductive Health Act (RHA), which allows life termination of a developing infant be made available to women essentially on demand up to the point of birth. The RHA will also decriminalize abortion, moving it from the state’s criminal code to the public-health code. Pam Embler Ph.D. and RN reports:

  "Repealing Section 4164 of the public health law legally excludes New York State from reporting “live aborted” death statistics. Live aborted death refers to any induced pregnancy for abortion that results in a live viable birth (24 weeks and after) no longer receiving resuscitative support – the baby is left to die, albeit medicated for comfort. The problem here is that the Reproductive Health Act now extends to a healthy live aborted baby through the repeal of Section 4164."

  For those practitioners of the death dogma, viable is defined as applicable infanticide. Since these executioners want protection in the law so that they can continue their slaughter, they must never admit that a living human being is alive, at any time, in the womb. Crushing the skull of the baby once the infant has been delivered from the uterus of the mother is unequivocal murder by the universal standards of any virtuous civilization.

  Read the article that concludes that society has a serious Planned Parenthood: You got a serious thinking disorder. Need proof, just ponder the disregard for life in the latest House Democrats Once Again Block Bill Protecting Infants Born Alive After Abortion.

  "The move to protect infants born alive after abortion comes after Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) made some surprising remarks about leaving infants to die after birth."

  “It’s done in cases where there may be severe deformities, there may be a fetus that’s nonviable,” Northam told WTOP regarding third trimester abortions. “So in this particular example, if a mother’s in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

  This obscenely incongruous position offers no rebuttal to the infanticide condemnation. The historic benchmark for, When does life begin? is based upon scientific agreement: Life begins at conception. Here are five vital signs of life in the womb.

  1. Heartbeat: Modern technology can detect the baby's heart 18 days after conception — about 4 days after most women miss a period and begin to suspect they are pregnant. It can be seen to beat by day 22. Between conception and birth, the heart beats approximately 54 million times!

  2. Brain waves: By 6 weeks and 2 days from conception, signals from the brain can be detected.

  3. Independent movement: Although a pregnant woman does not feel movement for at least another 8-10 weeks, the embryo begins to spontaneously move between 5-6 weeks.

  4. Senses: By 8 weeks and 2 days, touching the embryo will elicit squinting, jaw movement, grasping motions, and toe pointing.

  5. Breathing: The embryo can hiccup by 7 weeks. The diaphragm muscle is completely formed by 8 weeks and intermittent breathing motions begin.

  What is viewed as Pro-Life, en pro de vida is the only rational certitude that strips subjective opinion and narcissistic hubris of convenience from the sacred nature of life itself. When any society or civilization can dismiss a vigorous defense of the sanctity in all human life, the consequences ultimately lead to a culture of death. What starts with legalizing all-inclusive abortion, extends into accepting the inhuman attitude of mass ethnic cleansing. Remember that ignominious interview that should shock all peoples, 500,000 Dead Children Haunt Madeleine Albright.

  Jacob G. Hornberger writes,

  "How can the deaths of half-a-million children ever be worth anything? What could possibly be so important as to cause a person to conclude that the deaths of half-a-million children were “worth it”? What’s absolutely fascinating is that the Los Angeles Times editorial board and its op-ed writer, Meghan Daum, seem to have little sense of moral outrage over all this. They don’t seem to view the conscious killing of the Iraqi children with the sanctions to be murder. They seem to consider it as just another public-policy controversy — a matter of political opinion."

  Isn't this callous attitude towards life even a greater sin not only because the number of abortions in the U.S. are more than ten times the Iraqi slaughter but that these murders are protected by some perverted moral rationalization that it is a woman's right to choose? Somehow debating the politics of foreign carnage is a routine exercise; while challenging the butchery of a woman's child is the supreme taboo that requires political protection.

  Females (yes, those biological reproducers) that decide to abort their babies get a pass for practicing murder. Medical doctors, nurses and physicians are following in the footpath of Kermit Gosnell. And NYS politicians who voted for the New Abortion Law Allows Man Who Killed Pregnant Girlfriend to Get Away With Death of Unborn Child are accessories in the slaying of created life.

  "Realization of the impact of the law has generated outrage over the fact that offenders can get away with killing the unborn, even if the child’s mother wanted to keep the baby.

  This “means it’s open season on pregnant women in New York,” Dennis Poust of the New York State Catholic Conference told the Post.

  “With New York’s law, we’re saying you can take a life and escape any punishment,” also remarked Assemblyman Brian Manktelow, R-Wayne County. “How as a society can you allow that to happen?”

  This nation has accepted a doomed depravity that ignores the last remnants of righteousness. If tens of millions of aborted souls are tolerable, surely waging a catastrophic nuclear world war is no longer unthinkable. So much for the "Safe, Legal, Rare" illusion.

  SARTRE - February 19, 2019

  ***

  RT

  French schools to change ‘mother & father’ to ‘parent 1 and 2’ under new law

  February 15, 2019

  

  File photo: © Pixabay.com / Pexels.com

  French schools are set to replace the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ with ‘Parent 1’ and ‘Parent 2’ following an amendment to a law which passed through French Parliament this week.

  The new naming convention is ostensibly aimed at ending discrimination against same sex parents but critics argue that it “dehumanises” parenthood and may lead to rows over who gets classified as ‘Parent 1.’

  The amendment, passed Tuesday as part of a wider plan to build a so-called “school of trust,” will also enforce mandatory school attendance for all three-year-olds.

  “This amendment aims to root in law children’s family diversity in administrative forms submitted in school,” said Valérie Petit, MP for the majority REM party of President Emmanuel Macron.

  “We have families who find themselves faced with tick boxes stuck in rather old-fashioned social and family models. For us, this article is a measurement of social equality.”

  “I have already written that I’m particularly shocked and surprised at the ‘controversy’ around the parent/mother/Father forms,” Israeli-French former journalist Julien Bahloul, himself a same-sex parent, tweeted. “The mother and father are parents, nothing insulting to that. In #TelAviv the forms were changed a long time ago without any worries.”

  The proposal to eliminate the terms “mother” and “father” in favor of more inclusive, gender non-specific language has been around since the 2013 debates held prior to the legalisation of same sex marriage.

  “When I hear people say this is an old-fashioned model, I would remind people that today among unions celebrated, civil or marital, some 95 per cent are man-woman couples,” Conservative MP Xavier Breton said of the latest amendment, while fellow Conservative Fabien Di Filippo denounced the move as a “frightening ideology.”

  However, it is not just conservatives who question the effectiveness of the new legislation. Alexandre Urwicz president of the AFDH, the French association for same sex parents, worries that the legislation could create a “parental hierarchy.”

  “Who is ‘parent number 1’ and who is ‘parent number 2’?” he asks, adding that perhaps the less controversial “father, mother and legal representative,” be used instead.

  The amendment may yet be rejected by the majority-Senate but would then return to France’s National Assembly for further consideration.

  Debate is raging across French Twitter, though many have used the opportunity to ridicule the perceived overreaction on both sides of the argument.

  "My husband and I trying to decide who’s parent 1 and who’s parent 2," joked one Twitter user.

  ***

  LIFE SITE

  Transgender insanity: Police now jailing people for laughing at men in women’s clothes

  JONATHON VAN MAREN

  February 18, 2019

  February 18, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) –

  There was a story that circulated during the Cold War about a Soviet judge who was seen walking back to his chambers, chuckling heartily. His colleague approached him and asked him what was so funny. Oh, just a hilarious joke I heard, the judge replied. “Well, go ahead and tell me!” his colleague replied. “Oh, I couldn’t do that,” said the Soviet judge. “I just gave someone ten years for it.”

  I was reminded of this little anecdote when I spotted a story in the Edinburgh Newslast week, gravely titled “Edinburgh labourer shouted abuse at transgender woman.” It turns out that one Graham Spiers, a father of two and a construction worker employed at the St. James construction site, was walking past a pub in Bonnington, Edinburgh, with a few buddies, when they passed a transgender woman—a biological male. Although the journalist writing the story goes to great lengths to make it sound as if Spiers was “screaming” at the apparent victim, Spiers and his friends were specifically accused of “pointing and laughing” at the person.

  The man being laughed at suspected that he was being mocked for his appearance, as fiscal depute Rosie Cook told the Edinburgh Sheriff Court that the “complainer thought [the laughing and pointing] was in reference to her gender transition.” The transgender person then did what anyone would do if someone laughed at them: He promptly called the police, who take such things very seriously these days. The Edinburgh News, straining to make it sound as if the beery chuckles of a few construction workers really were a big deal, referred to the incident as an “unprovoked verbal assault on her.”

  The sheriff informed Spiers that his sense of humor had “no place in today’s society,” and that his laughing and pointing were so unacceptable that he was required to pay the man he had laughed at five hundred pounds “in compensation” for inferring by his laughter that the man did not look like a woman. The Edinburgh News referred to the incident as a “confrontation” despite the fact that the groups simply walked past each other, and Spiers was actually arrested five days later his misplaced mirth. The lawyer for the transgender complainant stated solemnly that Spiers now understands that his actions had been “disturbing for the complainer.”

  Sheriff Robert Fife also piled on, informing Spiers that, “Your offensive comments were not funny at the time and are not funny now. Your children should grow up understanding gender differences and would be ashamed at your behavior that comes from a different era has no place in today’s society.” Fife then told Spiers that in addition to the cash he had to pay to the biological man for laughing at him, he also had to pay an additional fine of another five hundred pounds.

  Consider this situation for a moment. A construction worker laughs at a biological man attempting to become a woman. Sure, we can agree that laughing at someone is a rude way to deal with any situation, but it was laughing. And Spiers was laughing because the man posing as a woman was very obviously not pulling it off, which happens to be true for most of those who are attempting to force the rest of us to play along with their delusions. And for that—for laughing—he was quite literally arrested, told by law enforcement that he had no right to find such a thing funny, ordered to pay the transgender person an exorbitant amount of money for hurting his feelings, and then pay more on top of that.

  It is disgusting enough that law enforcement would arrest and charge someone for this triviality. That alone indicates that freedom in Scotland is truly dead. But the fact that law enforcement then lectured Spiers on being a throwback from a different age (that different era being about a decade ago, for the record) and telling him his children should be ashamed of him? And that Spiers was expected to cower and listen to this tongue-lashing from his betters so he could get re-educated and realize that men could now become women and that laughing at their attempts was forbidden by law? That should absolutely repulse any liberty-loving person and terrify everyone who values freedom.

  As I wrote last week, the transgender movement has to impose their ideology on the rest of us with the power of the state because it is not a grassroots movement. Most ordinary people still find the entire phenomenon absurd, and there are even a few construction workers out there with the gall to chuckle at a man attempting to be a woman after they’ve had a few beers. But be careful: Your chuckles might end up putting you in handcuffs.

  (As has been said before, the inmates have taken over the insane asylum.)

  ***

  METRO

  Nasa releases picture of mysterious ‘dragon’ aurora rearing its head in the sky

  Jasper Hamill Tuesday 19 Feb 2019 10:48 am

  

  Nasa has released incredible pictures of an unusual ‘dragon’ aurora roaring silently in the sky over Iceland. The stunning natural wonder was caused by particles emited from the sun which smash into the atmosphere to cause a dramatic light display. Nasa wrote: ‘Have you ever seen a dragon in the sky? Although real flying dragons don’t exist, a huge dragon-shaped aurora developed in the sky over Iceland earlier this month. ‘The aurora was caused by a hole in the Sun’s corona that expelled charged particles into a solar wind that followed a changing interplanetary magnetic field to Earth’s magnetosphere.

  A view of the mysterious dragon aurora snapped in Iceland on February 18 (Photo: Jingyi Zhang & Wang Zheng)

  ‘As some of those particles then struck Earth’s atmosphere, they excited atoms which subsequently emitted light: aurora. ‘This iconic display was so enthralling that the photographer’s mother ran out to see it and was captured in the foreground. The dragon aurora is strange because it appeared during a time of low sunspot activity, which means our star is not emitting as many charged particles or ‘solar wind’ as it normally does. ‘No sunspots have appeared on the Sun so far in February, making the multiple days of picturesque auroral activity this month somewhat surprising,’ Nasa added. Auroras are generally silent when observed from Earth, although some people have reported hearing popping sounds or white noise when looking at the northern lights. Scientists have detected ‘clapping’ sounds made by auroras, but these can only be heard about 70 metres from the surface of Earth which means most people will not hear anything whilst witnessing this wonder of nature.

  ***

  “Escape All These Things”

  60 Reasons America is Mystery Babylon (Not Iraq)

  By Tim McHyde / May 2, 2006

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Article

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  RT

  Real ‘obscene masquerade’: How BBC depicted staged hospital scenes as proof of Douma chemical attack

  Vanessa Beeley is an independent investigative journalist and photographer. She is associate editor at 21st Century Wire.

  February 16, 2019

  

  A 'victim' of the alleged 'chemical attack' gets 'treatment' in Douma hospital. © HO / Douma City Coordination Committee / AFP

  In an extraordinary turn of events, corporate media appears to have been exposed again as an extension of state foreign policy, by a member of the establishment media cabal, manufacturing consent for regime change in Syria.

  Riam Dalati is on the BBC production team based in Beirut and describes himself, on his Twitter page, as an “esteemed colleague” of Quentin Sommerville, the BBC’s Middle East correspondent. Dalati broke ranks with his UK Government-aligned media, on Twitter, to announce that “after almost 6 months of investigation, I can prove, without a doubt, that the Douma hospital scene was staged.”

  The scenes in question are those manufactured by the White Helmet pseudo-humanitarian group and activists affiliated to Jaish al-Islam, the extremist armed group in charge of Douma at the time of the alleged chemical weapon attack on April 7, 2018. The scenes of children being hosed down, following a “chemical attack” were immediately accepted as credible and appeared alongside sensationalist headlines in most Western media outlets, including the BBC, CNN and Channel 4. Simon Tisdall of the Guardian wrote an opinion piece, with the headline ‘After Douma the West’s response to Syria regime must be military’ – only two days after Douma, effectively calling for all out war.

  While Dalati’s tweets have clearly distressed some notables in the establishment camp, Dalati is no stranger to such controversy. Almost immediately after the alleged incident in Douma, he tweeted out his frustration that “activists and rebels” had used “corpses of dead children to stage emotive scenes for Western consumption.” The emotive wording of Dalati’s tweet, he was “sick and tired” of such manipulation of events, suggested that this was not the first time children had been used as props in a macabre war theatre designed to elicit public sympathy for escalated military intervention in Syria disguised as a necessary “humanitarian” crack down on “Assad’s gassing of his own people.”

  Dalati had been referring to the arranging of two children’s corpses into a “last hug” still life composition, a photo that went viral, rocketed into the social media sphere by activists who had collaborated with the brutal Jaish al-Islam regime while it tortured and abused the Syrian civilians under its control.

  Perhaps Dalati’s apparent outburst could be explained by his participation in the production of the controversial September 2013 BBC Panorama documentary, ‘Saving Syria’s Children’. An independent researcher, Robert Stuart, has made it his life’s work to present a compelling argument that “sequences filmed by BBC personnel and others at Atareb Hospital, Aleppo on August 26, 2013 purporting to show the aftermath of an incendiary bomb attack on a nearby school are largely, if not entirely, staged.” Perhaps Dalati had witnessed one too many stagings of events that would precipitate the potential for war in Syria between the US and Russia.

  Whatever the reason for Dalati’s exasperation, the tweet was deleted before a watered down version appeared. Dalati claimed that a “breach of editorial policy” and lack of context was behind this alteration. Apparently BBC employees are not allowed to be “sick and tired” of the exploitation of children to promote a war that will inevitably kill more children. Simultaneously, Dalati’s account was protected, making tweets visible only to approved followers.

  On two significant occasions to date, Dalati appears to deviate from the BBC narrative road map in Syria. However, Dalati had participated in the corporate media lynching of journalists and academics who had dared to question the dominant “chemical attack” narrative, at the time of the alleged incident in Douma, dismissing them as conspiracy theorists. These “conspiracy theorists” included acclaimed journalist, Robert Fisk and Uli Gack, an experienced war correspondent with ZDF, a German public media outlet. Independent journalist, Eva Bartlett, and Pearson Sharpe of One American News Network also reported evidence of staging and mainstream media distortion of events in Douma.

  I visited Douma shortly after the alleged attack. I interviewed medical staff and civilians who were adamant that a chemical attack had not taken place. Doctors and nurses, some of whom were on duty on the night in question, told me that adults and children were suffering the effects of smoke inhalation. They described the panic generated by the activists and White Helmet operatives who arrived crying “chemical attack” before they hosed down the traumatised patients.

  20-year-old Suleiman Saour told me: “At 7pm we had been receiving wounded people all day long. At 7pm someone came in carrying a little boy, he laid him on a bed and said he had been hit with chemical weapons. Basically I checked the boy [...] he was suffering from smoke inhalation [..] we washed his face, used a spray and Ventolin. Later on we found out the child had asthma and it got worse because of the smoke.”

  Academics, Professors Piers Robinson and Tim Hayward, came under concerted attack as did other members of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media when they analysed the events and questioned the veracity of it being a chemical attack. In the UK, the Times published no less than four articles labeling myself and the “rogue” academics as “Assad’s useful idiots,” timed to perfection on the day that the UK, US and France launched their unlawful bombing campaign against Syria. A bombing campaign that was fully enabled by the ignominious rush to judgement by corporate media in the West.

  It has taken Dalati six months to arrive at the same conclusion as those he condemned as compromised “conspiracy theorists,”therefore we must question his motives for suddenly releasing these conclusions. Peter Ford, former UK Ambassador to Syria, gave me his opinion on Dalati’s revelations.

  “The UK joined Trump and Macron in illegally bombing Syria largely on the basis of a video clip shown ad nauseam on the BBC, which a BBC Syria producer has now said he has evidence was staged. The BBC in their statement are not denying the claim. The implications are shattering: firstly that the state broadcaster effectively connived at a manipulation of public opinion, and secondly that the British government launched its attack on Syria on a false and fabricated premise. This demands a public enquiry.”

  Ford’s statement highlights the seriousness of Dalati’s statement which must surely raise questions about the possibility of previous “chemical attack” narratives also being manipulated, staged or fabricated. Swedish Doctors for Human Rights investigated the alleged chlorine gas attack in Sarmin, March 2015 and found the medical procedures conducted by doctors at the scene to be extremely questionable.

  Dr Leif Elinder, a Swedish medical doctor and paediatric specialist, found that “after examination of the video material, I found that the measures inflicted upon those children, some of them lifeless, are bizarre, non-medical, non-lifesaving, and even counterproductive in terms of life-saving purposes of children.” This video, produced and presented by the White Helmets and their colleagues at the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), was shown during a UN Security Council “closed door” session to promote a no-fly zone which translates to protection for the US coalition-backed terrorist forces on the ground in Syria.

  As BBC producer has stated publicly that the hospital scenes during the Douma “attack” are staged, the BBC has distanced itself by stating that these are the personal claims of an employee which do not mean an attack did not take place. The July 2018 OPCW interim report has already discredited the early sensationalism of western media reporting. “No organophosphorus nerve agents or their degradation products were detected, either in the environmental samples or in plasma samples from the alleged casualties,” it stated. No Sarin.

  The OPCW Fact Finding Mission (FFM) has not yet reached a conclusion that a chemical attack of any kind took place in Douma. The environmental samples were reported to contain chlorinated organic molecules such as trichloroacetic acid and chloral hydrate, which could be attributed to something as basic as chlorinated drinking water. Despite this ambiguity, the BBC initially ran with the headline that ‘Chlorine was used’ in the Douma attack before altering to ‘Possible Chlorine at Douma Attack Site’. Another mistake? Or another deliberate attempt to mislead and shore up the UK FCO regime change storyline in Syria?

  Dalati’s revelations must also be viewed in context. They follow similar conclusions arrived at by corporate media colleague and journalist, James Harkin, a Guardian contributor who published a long-winded Douma investigation in the Intercept. Harkin also conceded that the Douma hospital scenes were likely staged and that the Sarin canard was a non-starter.

  It is very unlikely, despite the BBC protestation, that Dalati would risk publishing his claims without approval from BBC hierarchy. Timing is always crucial when examining events that have the potential to expose colonial media, particularly the BBC, as the refined state PR agencies they are in reality.

  Based on an informed and intelligent interpretation of events with historical context, we could speculate that the OPCW is about to release its final findings on the Douma attack. A report which has the potential to lay bare the full extent of the BBC’s deception and falsification of facts in Douma. A report which could raise unpleasant questions about corporate media reporting, particularly on alleged chemical weapon use by the Syrian government, throughout the 8 year conflict in Syria. Was Dalati’s shock information release nothing more than a damage limitation tactic by the BBC or is Dalati genuinely a rogue truth-teller? Only time will tell.

  What Dalati has done is highlight the hypocrisy and bias of Western media and government officials. The BBC report on the Russian “production” of Douma-chemical-attack-denying witnesses at the HQ of the OPCW in the Hague emphasises the dismissal of the event as a “despicable stunt” by the UK, US and France who boycotted the proceedings. French ambassador to the Netherlands described the Syrian civilian testimonies as an “obscene masquerade.” The Guardian ran with this statement as its headline, reducing Russia’s attempt to bring some clarity to the Douma attack to the unveiling of “supposed witnesses” in order to discredit such attempts to derail their preferred narrative.

  Now, it appears that the real obscene masquerade took place in the Medical Point in Douma, was constructed by the UK FCO-financed White Helmets, and was adopted by the BBC and other state stenographers as gospel in order to further criminalise the Syrian Arab Army just as the final liberation of Douma from Jaish al-Islam brutal rule was fast approaching. This obscene masquerade resulted in the unlawful bombing of Syria by the US, France and the UK. As Peter Ford stated, “this demands a public enquiry.”

  ANON NEWS

  Hell Hole on Earth Discovered at Fukushima

  By David Cohe

  February 15, 2019

  This article is from Greenmedinfo.com, Originally published on DrSircus.com.

  Most people think they have to die to go to hell but that is not true anymore. Today, in the mainstream press, they announced the existence of a hell hole in Japan at the destroyed nuclear power station at Fukushima. We have a hot spot on our planet that has never been imagined before and in the face of it human technology is helpless.

  At the levels of radiation now being found a Fukushima, a robot would be able to operate for less than two hours before it was destroyed. And Japan’s National Institute of Radiological Sciences said medical professionals had never even thought about encountering this level of radiation in their work.

  The accident is enormous in its medical implications. Through future years, too long to contemplate, we will witness an epidemic of cancer as people inhale the radioactive elements, eat radioactive vegetables, rice and meat, and drink radioactive milk and teas. Year by year, decade through relentless decade, the radiation will build up yet modern medicine does not seem concerned.

  New readings at Fukushima have recorded the highest radiation levels seen since the triple core meltdown that occurred in 2011. Readings inside the containment vessel of reactor no. 2 are as high as 530 Sieverts per hour, a dosage that would be fatal dozens and dozens of times over if a human were to be exposed to it. The previous high was a still very fatal rate of 73 Sieverts per hour.

  The blazing radiation reading was taken near the entrance to the space just below the pressure vessel, which contains the reactor core. The highest radiation levels ever measured at Chernobyl were 300 Sieverts per hour; an incomprehensibly high dose which can kill a man almost instantly.

  The new record at Fukushima of 530 Sieverts per hour is 70% higher than that of Chernobyl. The 530 Sievert reading was recorded some distance from the melted fuel, so in reality it could be 10 times higher than recorded, said Hideyuki Ban, co-director of Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center.

  To put this in perspective, radiation is usually measured in thousandths of a Sievert, called millisieverts. For example, most people receive around 2.4 millisieverts per year from background radiation, or only 0.0002739726 per hour.

  According to the Kyodo news agency, the institute estimates that exposure to one Sievert of radiation could lead to infertility, loss of hair and cataracts. One Sievert is enough to cause radiation sickness and nausea; 5 Sieverts would kill half those exposed to it within a month, and a single dose of 10 Sieverts would prove fatal within weeks.

  How Come We Do Not Hear More about Fukushima?

  It was just recently said that, “It is not every day that a U.S. president calls journalists among the most dishonest human beings on earth.” This dishonesty is displayed in its full power with nuclear power issues and specifically with Fukushima where things are so bad it is basically prohibited to talk about it openly in the press. In fact, as I was reading the essays on Yahoo about the record amount of radiation the essays disappeared off the news summary list.

  Most of this radiation is being washed out to sea and it is quite quicklydestroying the Pacific Ocean and much of the life in it. We have no idea how much of the radiation is escaping into the atmosphere but we do know that during the first few weeks of the nuclear accident, because of the explosions, huge amounts of radiation were released into the atmosphere and it circled around the globe especially in the northern hemisphere.

  There is no way for anyone to say that having a point of output of radiation of 530 Sieverts an hour is safe or how many decades it will take a radioactive output of this magnitude to badly pollute our precious world.None of this is good news for our children. Anyone who says nuclear power is safe is lying.Anyone who says nuclear radiation is not dangerous is lying.

  They Dont Want to Say Where These Clouds are Coming From</B></P> <P>Researchers have discovered the existence ofhigh-altitude “radiation cloudsthat can expose airplane passengers to high levels of radiation. These clouds were discovered as part of the NASA-funded Automated Radiation Measurements for Aerospace Safety (ARMAS) program.</P> <P>It’s widely known that radiation levels are generally higher in the upper atmosphere versus on the ground, simply due to the higher levels of cosmic rays. However, when studying these levels of radiation, researchers detected small pockets where radiation levels suddenly spiked, up to double the normal level. These spikes could not be explained by normal sources of radiation like cosmic rays. Frequent flyers, and first trimester fetuses may be at greater risk due to their longer exposure times or greater vulnerability.</P> <P><B>How Come Doctors Dont Say More About Radiation Dangers?

  Because they are among the primary users of nuclear radiation, using it for all kinds of dangerous tests. A single CT scan of the chest is equal to about 350 standard chest X-rays. They are using radiation, a cause of cancer, to try to treat cancer and that usually does not turn out too well. Because they are not honest with themselves they cannot be honest with their patients, who should be told that many of the tests they are being given by doctors expose them to more dangerous radiation.

  Like global warming, vaccines and now Islamic terrorism and immigration, there is no real discussion, no real science being sported in the news so the public is left completely in the dark about radiation exposures. The people with the real power in this world insist that we will always see and define the situation as safe, no need to worry or do anything like drink lots of iodine, sodium bicarbonate, magnesium and start off each day drinking a glass of ultra-pure edible clay. Edible clay is one of the most basic detoxification substances. It helps make sure absorbed radioactive particles pass through instead of into us. When was the last time you remember your doctor telling you to take magnesium or any of these other substances, or even sulfur to reduce the risk that our exposureto increasing levels of radiation do not lead to cancer.

  The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant says levels of radioactivity in underground tunnels have sharply risen. Tokyo Electric Power Company has detected 482,000 becquerels per liter of radioactive cesium in water samples taken from the tunnels on December 3rd. That’s 4000 times higher than data taken in December last year.

  Officials revealed that about 2 Trillion becquerels of Fukushima radioactive material flowed into the ocean every month during 2013 — “Deadly strontium” releases are now more than double cesium — “Strontium gets into your bones… it changes the equation.” Strontium is a potentially lethal alkaline earth metal poses the biggest immediate concern, because, unlike cesium, it doesn’t get trapped in soil and tends to accumulate in bones of fish and animals if ingested.

  Everyone wants to forget all about Fukushima

  Everyone wants to forget all about Fukushima for who wants to remember their worst nightmares? The Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown disaster “is not over and will never end,” warns Dr. Helen Caldicott, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and holder of 21 honorary doctorate degrees.

  It was reported by Andy Gunderson during the first year of the Fukushima meltdown that people on the west coast of the United States and Canada, Hawaii and Alaska were bearing some of the worst of the radiation and people then, and now, are not taking evasive action. Gunderson said in an exclusive interview with Chris Martenson that, “I am in touch with some scientists now who have been monitoring the air on the West Coast and in Seattle for instance, in April of 2011, the average person in Seattle breathed in 5-10 hot particles a day, depending on how active they are.” This means even if Fukushima disappeared today we should already be treating ourselves and our children for exposure.

  Conclusion

  Dr. Brownstein writes, “If there is enough inorganic, non-radioactive iodine in our bodies, the radioactive fallout has nowhere to bind in our bodies. It will pass through us, leaving our bodies unharmed. It is important to ensure that we have adequate iodine levels BEFORE this fallout hits.”

  Everyone should be making sure that they are taking enough minerals because radioactive substances mimic their non-radioactive mineral substances. Strontium mimics calcium, for example, making it extremely dangerous to all life forms once it is absorbed. The toxic substances such as Tritium, Cesium, Plutonium and Strontium are being carried everywhere by winds, rain and ocean currents, entering the food chain through seaweed and seafood, building up high levels of toxicity in the fish – and humans – at the top end of the consumption chain.

  Fukushima is Japan’s and the world’s radiation nightmare that will not go away in our lifetimes nor our children’s or grandchildren’s. The Fukushima nuclear power plant is hemorrhaging radioactive toxic waste into the ocean and though we are told not to panic, nor even to be casually concerned, the situation is dangerous and critical to future life on earth.

  For evidence-based research on ways to mitigate radiation disaster associated toxicity, visit the GreenMedInfo.com Research Dashboard.

  ***

  ***

  End Of The American Dream

  Life As You Have Known It Will Never Be The Same Again…

  3 Things That Trump Just Did That Are Absolutely Confounding The Pundits

  By Michael Snyder

  February 19, 2019

  

  With President Trump, you should always expect the unexpected. Just when you think that you have Trump all figured out, he will inevitably do something that completely surprises you, and this week there are three items in the news that are perfect examples of this. Each of these three items is confusing the experts, because in each case Trump is moving in a new direction that seems counter to what he had done previously.

  #1 President Trump has just launched a global campaign to legalize homosexuality in every nation on Earth.

  Many are stunned that Trump has put the full power of the U.S. government behind an all-out effort to legalize homosexuality worldwide. According to NBC News, this global campaign will be spearheaded by U.S. Ambassador Richard Grenell…

  The Trump administration is launching a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality in dozens of nations where it’s still illegal to be gay, U.S. officials tell NBC News, a bid aimed in part at denouncing Iran over its human rights record.

  U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, the highest-profile openly gay person in the Trump administration, is leading the effort, which kicks off Tuesday evening in Berlin. The U.S. embassy is flying in LGBT activists from across Europe for a strategy dinner to plan to push for decriminalization in places that still outlaw homosexuality — mostly concentrated in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean.

  And this could be just the beginning of big things for Grenell, because he is reportedly one of the top choices to become the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations…

  Grenell, known for his hawkish views on national security, is also currently under consideration to be Trump’s ambassador to the U.N., three U.S. officials tell NBC News, after Trump’s previous pick for the job, Heather Nauert, withdrew from consideration over the weekend. Grenell once served as spokesman for the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. when that role was inhabited by John Bolton, who is now Trump’s national security adviser.

  Prior to this, most conservative Christians in America had assumed that Trump was on their side on these issues because of previous actions that he had taken…

  The Trump administration has been criticized by LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) activists in the U.S. for barring transgender volunteers from serving in the U.S. military, and rescinding a policy from the previous administration encouraging special accommodation for transgender students in pu lic schools.

  But now Trump has made a major shift, and it will be very interesting to see how conservative Christians respond to this news.

  #2 It is being reported that President Trump was rushing to transfer “highly sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia”.

  Previously, it had been assumed that President Trump was against the spread of nuclear technology among the radical Islamic regimes of the Middle East.

  But now we are finding out that there apparently has been a major push “to build nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia”. The following comes from Zero Hedge…

  The House Oversight committee now chaired by Democrat Elijah Cummings issued an interim staff report after several whistleblowers came forward “to warn about efforts inside the White House to rush the transfer of highly sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia in potential violation of the Atomic Energy Act,” spearheaded by Jared Kushner, according to a press release by the House Oversight Committee.

  The press release is in conjunction with the announcement of an investigation into the allegations.

  The plan, which reportedly involved former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Kushner and Trump fundraiser Thomas Barrack, would see the development of “dozens of nuclear power plants” in a “Middle East Marshall Plan” through IP3 – a private US company which has “assembled a consortium of US companies to build nuclear plants in Saudi Arabia.“

  #3 President Trump is accusing Cuba of having troops in Venezuela as he continues to pave the way for a potential war.

  In 2016, many in the anti-war community voted for Trump because he promised to bring our troops home and he pledged that the U.S. would not be the police of the world.

  But now in 2019 he is moving us dangerously close to a war with Venezuela. For much more on how we got to this point, please see my previous article entitled “‘All Options Are Open’: Trump Threatens To Use The U.S. Military To Invade Venezuela”.

  However, Trump is not just threatening Venezuela at this point. Now he is accusing Cuba of having troops in the country, and he had some very strong words for them on Tuesday. The following comes from Reuters…

  Cuba denied on Tuesday it has security forces in Venezuela and charged the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign of lies paving the way for military intervention in the South American country.

  U.S. President Donald Trump and members of the administration have charged that Cuba’s security forces and military control Venezuela’s and that troops are also on the ground there.

  If the U.S. invades Venezuela, could it be possible that we will end up in a war with Cuba at the same time?

  Such a notion seemed impossible just a few short years ago, but our relations with Cuba are the diplomatic equivalent of a dumpster fire in 2019.

  And let us not forget that Russia also has troops in Venezuela. An invasion of Venezuela could definitely spark a much wider war, and that is something that nobody should want to see.

  We live in very troubled times, and I have a feeling that they are about to become much more troubled. Our world is beginning to spiral out of control, and the decisions that Trump makes in the coming months will have monumental consequences for all of us.

  ***

  SPUTNIK

  US, French, German Media Say Split Between Washington, Europe Turning Into Chasm

  February 19, 2019

  

  Earlier, Spiegel blasted US Vice President Mike Pence's remarks at the Munich Security Conference, which the German news magazine said amounted to the vice president "issuing orders" to Germany and other European powers and "threatening" Berlin over its energy cooperation with Russia.

  This year's Munich Security Conference included harsh barbs between Berlin and Washington, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel lashing out at the Trump administration over its policies and reiterating Europe's support for multilateralism.

  Merkel's speech included criticism of President Trump's decision to pull out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, as well as the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia, with the chancellor saying Europe has been left sitting "there in the middle with the result". The chancellor also defended Berlin's gas deals with Russia, recalling that Germany "imported large amounts of Russian gas" even during the Cold War, and asking whether the West's goal was to drive Russia into China's arms. "Is that our European interest? I don't think so," she said.

  The New York Times characterised Merkel's speech as "uncharacteristically passionate,"adding that the remarks made by Merkel and Pence were a "reminder of how far apart Europe and the United States are on a range of global issues".

  That sentiment was echoed in the German press, with Spiegel describingPence's message of "renewed American leadership on the world stage" as something out of a "strange parallel world" having "little to do with reality".

  The Washington Post was similarly unflattering, characterising US-European relations as "on the rocks" and saying they were unlikely to "get better anytime soon". Taking a view beyond the specific disagreements expressed in Munich, WaPo columnist Henry Olsen suggested that the tensions extend to ideological differences between the US and Europe, including differences on climate change, US tariffs on China, US insistence that NATO members all spend 2 percent of their GDP on defence, and tensions over trade.

  Emphasising that any Republican president would be similarly grating to the Europeans, Olsen admitted that even a Democrat in the White House might not fix the US-European rift, given the increasingly divergent meanings attached to the phrase "American leadership" on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

  "Our marriage with Europe is on the rocks no matter who leads us. Without serious and difficult communication and compromise from both sides, further estrangement is likelier than renewed devotion," the journalist concluded.

  Le Monde was also apprehensive, arguing that Munich had only accentuated the widening gap between the US and Europe, "highlight[ing] transatlantic disagreements on a number of crucial issues amid the disruption of the international order".

  "If anyone had any illusion about the state of transatlantic relations in the Trump era, the 55th Munich Security Conference…should have opened their eyes on the real state of affairs once and for all," the French daily lamented.

  Recalling Pence's speech and his demands that European powers including Germany, France and the UK stop easing anti-Iranian sanctions, Le Monde stressed that "Pence's moralising speech in Munich, consisting of a mix of warnings and reproaches but none of the usual beautiful words about the obligations of the United States to its NATO allies, received an icy welcome."

  Merkel's rebuke of Pence on policy issues was particularly telling, Le Monde added. "The fact that Angela Merkel, leader of the country which had been Washington's most faithful ally on the European continent for over half a century, inherited the role" of voicing the response to Pence, "says a lot about the poor state of transatlantic relations", the paper stressed.

  Ultimately, Le Monde warned that the Western allies better get their act together, lest Moscow take advantage of tensions between Washington and the Europeans and "urge the latter to move closer to Russia and the Eurasian community".

  ***

  RT

  Collapse of EU superstate? Euroskeptics could paralyze Brussels after May elections – study

  February 21, 2019

  

  © Reuters / Phil Noble

  Anti-EU parties are set to gain a third of European parliamentary votes in May, a new study says. Analysts warn it may bring down the whole political system in Europe, leaving Brussels powerless.

  The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) report describes the vote as "the most consequential parliamentary vote in the EU's history" and says it is even possible for Euroskeptic parties to gain more than 30 percent of the EP's seats "if their popularity continues to grow or if some of the fringe members of the mainstream join them."

  The report argues that if such a situation occurs, the EU could find itself "living on borrowed time" and outlines ways that various anti-EU parties could align with each other to garner more power in Brussels.

  'Too little, too late'

  The shaky situation in Europe is the result of the EU "trying to get rid of nationhood" and the fact that EU institutions are "too remote from the individual citizens," Jon Gaunt, a UK radio host, journalist and political commentator, told RT. That point was also reflected in the report which acknowledged that anti-EU parties are advocating a return to a "Europe of the nations" instead of what Gaunt described as a "non-democratic superstate."

  If anti-establishment parties gain more influence in EU politics, they could defuse arguments made by pro-EU parties that the project is"imperfect but capable of reform," the report said.

  Despite the rapid rise of anti-establishment parties, the report claims that the "silent majority" across Europe are still pro-EU. Gaunt believes, however, saying that the EU project is at "the beginning of the end" and efforts by pro-EU parties to reform the bloc are "too little, too late."

  ‘Crisis of confidence’

  While the report generally takes the view that Europeans still mostly “believe in and associate with” the EU project, it accepts that the status quo cannot simply be defended and that movements like the Yellow Vests in France have demonstrated that ordinary people “see no link” between what happens in the corridors of power and the issues they personally care about.

  One of those who echoes that view is Laszlo Maracz, a European Studies professor and humanities researcher at University of Amsterdam, who told RT that the mass protest movement in France reflects that the EU project is experiencing a “very deep crisis in confidence” which could lead some countries to “the brink of political meltdown” and France in particular could enter into some “revolutionary state of affairs.”

  As for how to solve the multiple crises facing Europe, it’s not a one-size-fits-all, Maracz said, noting that regional, national and individual differences exist across Europe and that there is not “one recipe” to fix the “extremely complex” situation.

  The report, however, takes a dismissive tone against these increasingly popular parties and anti-EU sentiment, framing them as groups who want to “wreck Europe” and giving the impression that status quo powers have more right to exert influence in Europe — the kind of attitude which led the EU to its current crisis in the first place.

  ‘Fighting back’

  The authors of the EU report offer various strategies for pro-European forces to “fight back” against euroskepticism. One of those strategies is to “drive a wedge” between anti-EU parties in an effort to prevent them from working together. Another strategy is to make the argument that “anti-Europeans”are“doing the job of the Kremlin”— a tactic which is an increasingly popular tool of establishment parties across the Western world.

  Russian interference in the May elections is “highly likely” and “love of Russia” and “hatred of sanctions” is something that could unite the far left and far right, the report argues. With enough power, one of the biggest fears is that these parties could “compromise the EU’s common foreign policy on Russia.”

  In terms of how anti-EU parties could cooperate, various options are outlined including a potential “die-hard anti-EU coalitions of only the far right.” There is also the possibility of an “all against the establishment” alliance of the far right, Euroskeptics, and the far left, which could make life “very difficult” for pro-EU forces — although the authors see this scenario as less likely.

  “Europe is in crisis and the crisis has not been caused by Euroskeptic parties,” Maracz said. “It’s caused by those people who have responsibility for political decision making now.”

  ***

  EFF

  The Final Version of the EU's Copyright Directive Is the Worst One Yet

  BY CORY DOCTOROW

  February 13, 2019

  

  Despite ringing denunciations from small EU tech businesses, giant EU entertainment companies, artists' groups, technical experts, and human rights experts, and the largest body of concerned citizens in EU history, the EU has concluded its "trilogues" on the new Copyright Directive, striking a deal that—amazingly—is worse than any in the Directive's sordid history.

  Goodbye, protections for artists and scientists

  The Copyright Directive was always a grab bag of updates to EU copyright rules—which are long overdue for an overhaul, given that it's been 18 years since the last set of rules were ratified. Some of its clauses gave artists and scientists much-needed protections: artists were to be protected from the worst ripoffs by entertainment companies, and scientists could use copyrighted works as raw material for various kinds of data analysis and scholarship.

  Both of these clauses have now been gutted to the point of uselessness, leaving the giant entertainment companies with unchecked power to exploit creators and arbitrarily hold back scientific research.

  Having dispensed with some of the most positive versions of the Directive, the trilogues have also managed to make the (unbelievably dreadful) bad components of the Directive even worse.

  A dim future for every made-in-the-EU platform, service and online community

  Under the final text, any online community, platform or service that has existed for three or more years, or is making €10,000,001/year or more, is responsible for ensuring that no user ever posts anything that infringes copyright, even momentarily. This is impossible, and the closest any service can come to it is spending hundreds of millions of euros to develop automated copyright filters. Those filters will subject all communications of every European to interception and arbitrary censorship if a black-box algorithm decides their text, pictures, sounds or videos are a match for a known copyrighted work. They are a gift to fraudsters and criminals, to say nothing of censors, both government and private.

  These filters are unaffordable by all but the largest tech companies, all based in the USA, and the only way Europe's homegrown tech sector can avoid the obligation to deploy them is to stay under ten million euros per year in revenue, and also shut down after three years.

  America's Big Tech companies would certainly prefer not to have to install these filters, but the possibility of being able to grow unchecked, without having to contend with European competitors, is a pretty good second prize (which is why some of the biggest US tech companies have secretly lobbied for filters).

  Amazingly, the tiny, useless exceptions in Article 13 are too generous for the entertainment industry lobby, and so politicians have given them a gift to ease the pain: under the final text, every online community, service or platform is required to make "best efforts" to license anything their users might conceivably upload, meaning that they have to buy virtually anything any copyright holder offers to sell them, at any price, on pain of being liable for infringement if a user later uploads that work.

  News that you're not allowed to discuss

  Article 11, which allows news sites to decide who can link to their stories and charge for permission to do so, has also been worsened. The final text clarifies that any link that contains more than "single words or very short extracts" from a news story must be licensed, with no exceptions for noncommercial users, nonprofit projects, or even personal websites with ads or other income sources, no matter how small.

  Will Members of the European Parliament dare to vote for this?

  Now that the Directive has emerged from the Trilogue, it will head to the European Parliament for a vote for the whole body, either during the March 25-28 session or the April 15-18 session—with elections scheduled in May.

  These elections are critical: the Members of the European Parliament are going to be fighting an election right after voting on this Directive, which is already the most unpopular legislative effort in European history, and that's before the public gets wind of these latest changes.

  Let's get real: no EU political party will be able to campaign for votes on the strength of passing the Copyright Directive—but plenty of parties will be able to drum up support to throw out the parties that defied the will of voters and risked the destruction of the Internet as we know it to pour a few million Euros into the coffers of media companies and newspaper proprietors—after those companies told them not to.

  There's never been a moment where your voice mattered more

  Watch this space. We will be working with allies across the EU to make this upcoming Parliamentary vote into an issue that every Member of the European Parliament is well-informed on, and we're going to make sure that every MEP knows that the voters of Europe are watching them and taking note of how they vote.

  All that it takes is for you to speak up. Over four million Internet users have signed the petition against the Directive. If you can do that, you can pick up the phone and call your MEP. Tell them why you’re against the Directive, what it means for you, and what you expect your representatives to do in the forthcoming plenary vote. It really is the last chance to make your voice heard.

  ***

  RT

  ‘Jaw-dropping moment’: Scientists discover mysterious new communication mechanism in the brain

  February 18, 2019

  

  File photo: © David Cassolato / Pexels.com

  Researchers studying the brain have stumbled upon a mysterious, previously unknown form of neural communication that has stunned the scientific community.

  Despite major scientific breakthroughs, the brain largely remains a mystery, and the team from Case Western Reserve University have added to it with their latest paper on a self-propagating ‘wireless’ communication they encountered that can jump across different sections of the brain.

  While we’re asleep, the cortex and hippocampus in the brain send out mysterious neural ‘waves’. Scientists have previously observed a low-level, slow periodic activity in the brains of decapitated mice by studying slices of their hippocampuses.

  “We’ve known about these waves for a long time, but no one knows their exact function and no one believed they could spontaneously propagate,”says neural and biomedical engineer Dominique Durand from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

  This slow periodic activity can generate electric fields which ‘switch on’ neighboring cells briefly, allowing for chemical-free communication across gaps in the brain. The team managed to simulate communication across completely severed brain tissue while the separate pieces remained in close proximity.

  “It was a jaw-dropping moment for us and for every scientist we told about this so far.”

  The review committee at The Journal of Physiology required the researchers to replicate their results again before they would consider publishing. The researchers were happy to oblige and their paper was subsequently published in the October issue.

  When many neurons fire they create a weak electric field, which we can observe on an electroencephalogram (EEG); think of a Mexican wave that keeps going despite breaks in the crowd.

  The team has yet to decipher how exactly the discovery works, or what its applications may be.

  MDCREEKMORE.com

  How I Cured My High Blood Pressure Naturally

  BY M.D. CREEKMORE · PUBLISHED

  February 17, 2019

  High blood pressure “runs” in my family, and like many others in my family my numbers kept rising slightly every year and then a few months ago I checked it and it was 170/100! However, I think a lot of that rise had to do with stress and anxiety over stuff that was going on in my life at that time…

  But still, that number was high by current medical guidelines which state that optimal blood pressure is 120/70 with 130/80 and higher being considered hypertension. So I waited a couple of days and checked it again and it was still a little elevated by those current guidelines but not nearly as much as it was when I had checked it a few days before.

  After those readings, I went on a quest to learn everything that I could about blood pressure and how to lower blood pressure naturally. And you’ll be surprised at what I found out!

  The first thing that I noticed was that the guidelines for what is considered “high blood pressure or hypertension” as set by the medical and pharmaceutical industry have continually been lowered over the years thus classifying more and more people as being hypertensive and needing medical intervention to lower the numbers by prescriptions and recurring visits to the doctor’s office.

  Prescriptions and recurring visits to the doctor’s office is profitable for the pharmaceutical manufactures who, manufacturer those blood pressure lowering drugs and for the doctors prescribing them, and as we all know profit is a huge motivator, so we have to wonder how much those continually lowered numbers that classify hypertension have to do with health and how much has to do with profit…

  The numbers for what was considered normal healthy blood pressure were the same for years at 140/90 and before that, the accepted norm was 100 plus your age for the top systolic number. However, the new normal/optimal is set at 120/70 or is it 115/75?

  It changes every few years and can become confusing, trying to remember the numbers, but one thing is certain and that is that lowering those numbers just 5 points on the blood pressure scale can mean billions of dollars for the pharmaceutical drug manufacturers and their pushers in the white coats.

  Blood pressure number catch-all recommendations

  And another thing that I found that didn’t make any sense to me is that no consideration or adjustments to those numbered guidelines are made on an individual basis. In other words, a six-foot-four 250-pound male and a five-foot-three 110 female are treated the same when it comes to blood pressure numbers and treatment.

  Does that make any sense to you? It doesn’t to me. Common sense would suggest that a larger body would need a slightly higher blood pressure to push blood throughout the body of a larger human than a smaller one, yet no adjustments are made for body mass when it comes to the treatment recommendations for blood pressure.

  It’s one size fits all when it comes to blood pressure and treatment guidelines that are set by the medical industry which doesn’t make any sense to me and I wonder how much is actually drug company hype meant to turn healthy people into patients in order to sell more of their product (i.e. blood pressure lowering medications) and how much is based on real medical science.

  Inaccurate blood pressure readings at the doctor’s office

  And even if the numbers were based on real medical research and science I read an article a few days ago that stated that a third of people who are diagnosed with having hypertension by their doctors’ didn’t actually have hypertension and instead had an elevated blood pressure reading that was brought on by stress from being at the doctor’s office aka white coat syndrome.

  Let’s again look at this with common sense… you’re already sick and or hurting to the point where you need to seek medical treatment, and you go into the doctor’s office where you sign in, then sit and wait, and wait, and wait sometimes for thirty minutes or more for your name to be called and when it finally is you are rushed into a room where the nurse slaps the cuff on your are and takes a reading, all the while your stressed from waiting in the lobby to be seen plus you’re already sick and or in pain and now they are taking your blood pressure… of course, it will most likely be elevated!

  Most people can not get an accurate blood pressure reading at the doctor’s office. I know I can’t! Every time I go to the doctor I’m stressed and worried that they are going to find something seriously wrong with me so with the stress of the visit, of course, my blood pressure reading will be elevated!

  And then when I leave the doctor’s office my blood pressure will quickly drop to my normal level of 130 something over 80 something. But, guess what… they always want to prescribe me medication for hypertension and have, but I don’t take it. They write me a prescription for hypertension without considering or even trying to find the cause of the elevated reading.

  And even if the current recommendation of 120/70 blood pressure reading were based on medical science one elevated reading does not mean that you have high blood pressure and need a prescription drug to lower it.

  How to take an accurate blood pressure reading

  Blood pressure fluctuates and decreases throughout a normal day as needed. Yes, blood pressure regulates itself as needed and is constantly changing. So even if the current blood pressure guidelines were correct and based on science a single elevated blood pressure reading still does not mean that you have high blood pressure and need drug treatment.

  A diagnosis of high blood pressure should be based on several readings at different times of the day and when you’re in a relaxed state, both physically and mentally not while you’re sick, hurting and being rushed through the process at the doctor’s office.

  To take an accurate blood pressure reading you should sit comfortably in a room without distractions, preferably at home and then deep breath (meditate) for five to ten minutes with your arm resting comfortably on a table at heart level (see the photo below).

  Any blood pressure monitor you buy should come with detailed instructions for you to follow. Read those carefully and follow the steps listed and you’ll get a much more likely to take an accurate blood pressure reading than you will get at the doctor’s office.

  Here is a link to the blood pressure monitor that I have at Amazon.com…

  So what should you consider a high blood pressure reading?

  Well, I’m not a doctor and can’t legally give anyone medical advice and anything I state in this article should not be taken as medical advice, however, for me I don’t worry about numbers that are at or below 140/90, however, you’ll have to make your own choices and or follow your doctors’ recommendations regarding the numbers and treatment options that are best for you.

  How I lowered my blood pressure naturally…

  While my numbers weren’t high (according to my personal set standard of 140/90 or below) I decided to see what I could do to lower my blood pressure naturally… The first thing I did was lose some weight by power walking every day and cutting out as many carbohydrates as possible…

  When I started I was at 205 pounds and now approximately eight months later I weighed myself this morning and the scale read 178. The scale that I have is the GreaterGoods bathroom scale that I ordered through Amazon.com (click here to check the current price and availability at Amazon.com).

  I also started taking Ubiquinol CoQ10 – here is a link to the brand that I take at Amazon.com, however, I buy it at my local Wal-Mart instead of ordering it. I also take this fish oil supplement that I order from Amazon.com and now my blood pressure readings are in the upper 120’s over the upper 70’s for most readings.

  My father before he passed away with cancer always had an extremely high blood pressure reading with the top number being consistently over 200, this despite the fact that he was taking several prescription blood pressure medications…

  Well, seeing that the prescription medications were not helping him I did some research (it’s what I do) and picked up some fish oil and hawthorn supplements for him and told him to try taking those which he did and two weeks later he came back to my house and I checked his blood pressure again and it was 122/72!

  I said to myself that can’t be right so I waited about ten minutes and checked again… the same result! So I checked it three more times that day and every time it was within the same number range. And yes, my blood pressure monitor is accurate – I had it calibrated with the one at the doctor’s office after to be sure.

  Required disclaimer: All content in this article is created and published for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice and should not be relied on as health or personal advice.

  Until next week...keep on believing.
  Almondtree Productions

  “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
  (Philippians 4:5-6)