Month: February 2023

By Andrea Widburg

The Bible has always been clear about one thing, and that’s that there are only two sexes: “In the day that God created man, He made him in His own likeness. Male and female He created them, and He blessed them.” (Genesis 5:1.) The sexual binary is a fundamental truth underlying every subsequent Biblical narrative. However, in both England and Canada, Christian institutions, when given a choice between the so-called transgender narrative versus the Bible, have opted for the former over the latter.

England’s official, state-sanctioned church is the Church of England, which Henry VIII established when he split from Rome. It used to be a standard, Bible-believing Church. Now, though, it seems that things are changing in a big way.

The Church of England’s Bishop in Coventry (a bishop, mind you!) is alleged to have reported a member of the congregation to the police for committing a hate crime. The crime? Opposing gender theory and the sexualization of young children within the church:

Sam Margrave, 40, has been a lay member of the Church of England’s general synod—its governing body—for over 10 years. Since he put forward a motion for debate at the July 2022 general synod, he has received death threats and faced constant harassment.

His motion proposed that the synod, “affirming that God loves all people, nevertheless consider[s] that the ‘Pride’ rainbow flag, activity and events, and what it represents in terms of the ordering of lives and relationships is contrary to the word of God….

Margrave cited myriad Biblical verses to support that principle and then called on the House of Bishops

to state that support for Pride (including use of the rainbow flag; and blessing, participation in, publicising, resourcing and endorsement of Pride events or flags) is incompatible with the Christian faith, its agenda being contrary to scriptural teaching, Church doctrine and Canons of the Church of England …”

In addition, Margrave has spoken out on Twitter about the whole universe of “Queer Theory.” In addition to the usual threats one gets from LGBTQ activists, Margrave got “abuse by members of the clergy.” But it’s what the Bishop allegedly did that’s the shocker:

In addition, the Bishop of Coventry sent correspondence to Musgrave that said: “The Diocesan Secretary has had no option, in view of a number of complaints received, to report your offending tweets to the West Midlands Police and is in continuing conversation with them. They have advised her that they have been able to speak to you but that you continue to deny you have done anything wrong.”

In sum, for reciting the Bible to the church hierarchy and asking that the church conform its teachings to the Bible, the church hierarchy didn’t merely say “no” (which is surprising enough). Instead, it turned a parishioner over to the police for daring to advance a Biblically-based worldview. Am I the only one who wonders who a Church is for if it doesn’t abide by core Biblical principles?

Closer to home than England but still in the totalitarian, non-constitutional Anglosphere, a Catholic high school in Ontario, Canada, allegedly suspended a student for insisting that there are only two genders and that boys shouldn’t be using the girls’ room under the fiction that, their genitalia and, indeed, DNA to the contrary, they’re really girls:

Since November, Josh Alexander has allegedly been suspended from St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Renfrew, Ontario. Alexander was allegedly punished by the school for organizing a protest against transgender students using girls’ bathrooms. Alexander said he launched the demonstration after two girls at his school confided in him that they were uncomfortable sharing bathrooms with biological males.

Alexander, an 11th-grade student, was reportedly barred from attending St. Joseph’s Catholic High School for the remainder of the school year.

Alexander informed The Epoch Times that St. Joseph’s Catholic High School told him that his attendance at the school would be “detrimental to the physical and mental well-being” of transgender students.

Alexander said the school labeled his beliefs as “offensive” and “bullying” because there was a transgender student in his class.

Again, does it strike anyone as weird that a religious organization would choose the delusions of mentally ill people over the word of the Bible? Can you still call yourself a religious institution if you do that? Of what use is a religious institution if it doesn’t stand for anything and is willing to take on every fad that comes its way?

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/02/christian_institutions_are_taking_sides_on_the_socalled_transgender_question.html

A local court in Ahmedabad, Gujarat dismissed a lawsuit by three Hindu girls who sought the retirement benefits of their deceased mother. The court said that since their mother had converted to Islam, her daughters are no longer entitled to any benefit.

The court declared the deceased woman’s Muslim son as her legitimate heir and denied any benefit to the three daughters because they are Hindu and not entitled to any benefit under Islamic law.

As per reports, Ranjan Tripathi lost her husband, a Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) employee, in 1979, leaving behind a pregnant wife and two daughters. On the grounds of sympathy, BSNL let the widow work as a clerk. She did not, however, remain with her family for a long time, and her three girls were cared for by their paternal family.

After leaving her family, Ranjan moved in with a Muslim man. The three daughters filed a maintenance lawsuit against her in 1990, alleging abandonment and they won that lawsuit.

After her conversion to Islam, Ranjan Tripathi took the name of Rehana Malek and married the Muslim man in 1995. She had a son with him before passing away in 2009.

Once Ranjan (Rehana) passed away, her three daughters filed a lawsuit in the city civil court, asserting their right to her provident fund, gratuity, insurance, leave encashment, and other benefits by alleging that they are Class I heirs because they are her biological daughters.

However, the court noted that according to the law, if the decedent was a Muslim, her Class I heirs cannot be Hindus. Only Muslims may be the immediate heirs of a deceased Muslim.

Hence, legally, the daughters are not eligible for inheritance because their mother converted to Islam and the daughters are Hindus.

https://www.opindia.com/2023/02/hindu-daughters-eligible-inheritance-islam-ahmedabad-court/

The German government is reportedly considering diverting green agenda subsidies aimed at cutting coal power to the defence industry in order to ramp up production of arms amid the war in Ukraine.

A report from Bloomberg claims that the federal government in Berlin is conducting confidential conversations with regional state governments to direct green subsidies to produce more weapons and ammunition and thereby create more jobs in areas of the country impacted by the attempted move away from coal.

According to a source familiar with the plans who spoke to the news organisation, German defence contractor Rheinmetall AG is planning to build a factory to produce the basic components for ammunition in the state of Saxony, one of the main hubs of the coal industry in the country.

The defence firm is also planning on investing over €10 million into a production line near Hamburg to produce ammunition for the 30 Gepard anti-aircraft guns that Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government has committed to sending to Ukraine following Russia’s full-scalle invasion in February 2022.

The economic powerhouse of Europe has long suffered from out of date and often dilapidated military equipment, with the government of former leader Angela Merkel consistently failing to spend the bare minimum on defence spending to meet its obligations to the American-led NATO alliance — a fact that was frequently criticised by former President Donald Trump.

Days after Russian forces launched an invasion of Ukraine last February, the recently formed coalition government under Social Democrat politician Olaf Scholz announced that the country would commit 100 billion euros (£90/$109 billion) to revamp its military and finally meet the 2 per cent of GDP NATO spending requirement after years of delinquency.

Despite this spending commitment from the government, the volume of the shipments of munitions and weapons to Ukraine has essentially left Germany’s military stockpiles “bare“, according to the chief of Germany’s army.

Following the decision last month to finally send some of the nation’s Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, Lieutenant General Alfons Mais warned there “comes a point where we can no longer do our jobs,” in reference to the diminished capacity of the German army.

The war in Ukraine not only exposed the failure of the German government to properly provide for its military, but has also poked holes in its leftist green agenda.

Following the invasion and the subsequent imposition of Western sanctions on Moscow, the flow of Russian natural gas through pipelines to Germany came to a screeching near-halt, forcing the country to not only delay the planned closure of its three remaining nuclear power plants, but also to once again ramp up coal production to keep the country from freezing.

In stark contrast to the country’s oft-touted green credentials, an additional 164 million tonnes of extra carbon dioxide was pumped into the atmosphere as a result of the increased use of coal last year, even when taking into account the government’s plan to move up its planned goal of banning the energy source by the year 2030 in order to offset current usage.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/02/05/germany-to-divert-green-agenda-cash-aimed-at-killing-coal-to-arms-industry-report/

The nearly half-hour demonstration on Saturday was entitled “The Qur’an is the future. Rally against the burning of the Qur’an.” Many of the Muslims who came out to protest were loyalists to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

The jihadis held Qur’an’s in their hands while shouting the Islamic war cry, Allahu Akbar.  Banners and signs flying at the demonstration read: “Legislation belongs to Allah alone, Stop hate speech against Islam” and “Allah uplifts people with this book and humiliates others.”

The Hamburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution warned against joining the demonstration. The radical Islamic network Muslim Interaktiv (MI), which has the same ideology as the terrorist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT), was behind the protest. “Anyone who takes part in this demonstration stands side by side with enemies of the constitution who want to enforce a form of society incompatible with our free democratic basic order,” it said in advance.

https://rairfoundation.com/thousands-of-radicalized-muslims-demonstrated-in-germany-against-the-quran-burning-in-sweden-video/

By Thomas Lifson

It turns out that the conservative/populist Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Melonia, widely decried in media and leftist circles as fascist or “fascist-adjacent”, is a hit with Italian voters a hundred days into office. John Hinderaker of Powerline cites a paywalled London Times article pointing out that she s the most popular leader in the EU.

When Giorgia Meloni became Italy’s first female prime minister last October her harshest opponents presented her as a danger to her country and to Europe.

There were warnings that politicians within her Brothers of Italy party were too openly nostalgic for the days of Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator. Battles with the European Union and the financial markets were anticipated over her economic plans. Critics speculated about how long a leader with little government experience could hold together a three-party coalition that includes two of her biggest rivals on the right.

Instead Meloni, 46, has emerged from her unexpectedly smooth first 100 days in office, completed last week, as the most popular leader in the EU.

The corporate US media naturally feared and hated her when she won:

This is of great importance because of what Meloni stands for, as Christopher Garbacz pointed out to AT readers shortly after her resounding victory. For starters, The EU:

threatened sanctions if Italians elected Meloni.

Those Italians who put Meloni in office made clear that they were pushing back against the left’s policies: open borders, disdain for Christianity, the complete embrace of the LGBTQ+++ agenda, etc. That matters because America is bathed in the same tidal wave of suicidal societal insanity.

Naturally, Biden dreaded her, as Brian Joondeph noted here:

Politico White House bureau chief Jonathan Lemire claimed that the election of “far-right” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was met with “deep, if private, worry within President Joe Biden’s administration.”

Going further in Politico, Lemire wrote that despite the White House’s acceptance of Meloni’s win, they view her recent victory as part of a “concerning trend” of “right-wing wins” in Europe. Concern for the White House means jubilation for most of the rest of us.

Meloni, like Trump, is a fighter, and stood up to France’s PM Emmanuel Macron when he retaliated against her for demanding that France accept illegal immigrants when demanding Italy do so (Monica Showalter explained here). She didn’t mess around, she hit back, calling out French hypocritical BS:

This is fantastic. Macron thought he could throw a “cordon sanitaire”around Meloni’s Italy, and she is really taking it to him. https://t.co/mmpWeaWagL

— Mike Gonzalez (@Gundisalvus) November 19, 2022

Like Florida’s DeSantis, Melonia has chalked up a series of actions that are very popular with her constituents, as the London Times article cited by John Hinderaker stated:

A fairly conservative budget passed in record time in December has kept Brussels and the bond dealers sweet, while in the past week she has clinched a landmark $8 billion (£6.6 billion) deal with Libya to supply gas and been hosted by the leaders of Sweden and Germany. A trip to Kyiv is expected soon. Her authority over her far more seasoned coalition partners Silvio Berlusconi, 86, and Matteo Salvini, 49, appears unchallenged.

An EU summit starting next Thursday could see some sympathy for Meloni’s tough line on migration, while her approval rating, at 52 per cent, is far higher than that of any of the other leaders who will be seated around the table with her, according to Morning Consult, a US-based global decision intelligence company.

So, congratulations to Italy for electing a capable conservative. Let’s hope the American electorate follows suit in 2024.Oh, and by the way, don’t expect to see anything about her popularity in the American media, except the conservative wing.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/02/popularity_of_italys_pm_giorgia_meloni_is_a_rebuke_to_eu_bureaucrats_and_european_msm_.html

In a current plenary debate on migration, the Hungarian Fidesz MEP Kinga Gál confronted the EU Commission after Commission President von der Leyen had once again spoken out in favor of a European redistribution mechanism for migrants.

A relevant resolution of the EU Parliament also proposed the “improvement of voluntary solidarity, combating the causes of migration from third countries and the introduction of safe and legal routes to Europe”.

The Hungarian Fidesz ruling party has no time for such plans. Instead of stabbing Hungary in the back, the European Commission should finally reimburse the costs of Hungary’s border protection measures and support member states that protect their external borders in their efforts to fight illegal migration, Fidesz MEP Gál said in the debate.

There’s only one solution: Keep illegals out

She recalled that the migratory pressure on the EU’s external borders was increasing at an alarming rate and that there were regular violent attacks on border guards.

The only solution was to protect the EU’s external borders and stop illegal migration. Proposals that do not aim to deter illegal immigrants but to accommodate them are harmful. “A distribution system based on solidarity is an incentive for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants and criminal organizations that smuggle people,” said the Hungarian MP.

https://freewestmedia.com/2023/02/05/fidesz-mp-challenges-von-der-leyen/

The frightening situation in Pakistan is causing concern throughout the world, and serves as a warning of what happens to nations that foster extremism, support terrorism, lack growth and development strategies, and show complete contempt for the well-being of their average population. Such societies are destined to fall.

A confluence of decades of poor policy has led to Pakistan’s current economic disaster. It has devolved into a state at war with itself. Asian Lite observed that by patronizing and supporting militancy and extremism in the name of jihad, it has rarely prioritized long-term economic progress and instead displayed shortsightedness by conducting a war, either directly or through a proxy, with its neighbour.

In an effort to avert its approaching insolvency before it is too late, Pakistan is appealing to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $7 billion bailout package. The IMF delegation’s visit to Pakistan would lead to challenging times. According to the study, Pakistan will need to adopt a variety of contentious austerity measures, such as large subsidy cuts and market reforms, in order to secure this loan.

The rating agency Moody’s underlined that the “country’s ability to afford its own debt is one of the weakest among the sovereigns” in a remark that was cited in the report.

Pakistan has committed to paying $15.5 billion in debt servicing by 2023. The research shows that Pakistan’s interest payment obligation for this year, which is 25% higher than in 2022, is equal to half of the nation’s gross domestic product. According to the assessment, the external debt has climbed from USD 66 billion in FY17 to USD 100 billion at this time.

Asian Lite highlighted a report from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) that stated that Pakistan is facing a debt of over USD 250 billion, much exceeding the carrying capability of the Pakistani state, and that it must repay a debt of USD 33 billion by 2023. The problem is getting worse due to the Pakistani Rupee’s (PKR) continuous decline, which has caused it to reach a record low of 267.48 against the dollar.

Millions of people in the country are being forced into poverty and malnutrition as a result of this severe economic setback, which also makes it impossible for the nation to import necessities. The decrease in the nation’s foreign exchange holdings is concerning. Its current foreign exchange holding of USD 3.67 billion, the lowest amount since 2014, is only enough to fund three weeks’ worth of imports.

According to the Asian Lite, a number of factors contributed to the deterioration of the crisis in Pakistan, including its sluggish GDP growth, the global economic drop in performance, increasing worldwide inflation brought on by the conflict in the Ukraine, the falling value of the Pakistani rupee, which made imports more expensive, and a devastating flood that affected over 33 million people.

The nation’s economy is presently in a recession as a result of its own actions, claims the report. Owing to the result of years of terrible policies that enabled terrorism and extremism. It has seldom placed a high priority on protracted economic goals and has shown shortsightedness by engaging in direct or indirect hostilities with India.

Innocent people and law enforcement personnel are being killed as a result of the emergence of terrorist organisations like Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which was supported by Pakistan’s army and intelligence agency ISI. The war is being waged against the Pakistani state itself.

Its myopic policy choices that led to excessive spending on non-developmental and financially unviable projects are blamed for the current economic crisis.

Pakistan’s fiscal and monetary policies have not undergone structural or economic reforms, and nepotism and graft corruption are rampant in the country’s economy.

https://www.opindia.com/2023/02/pakistans-backing-of-terrorism-and-bad-policies-led-to-economic-crisis-report/

The leftist President of Ireland has attacked anti-mass migration protesters in the country, accusing them of “sowing hate”.

Michael D. Higgins, the President of Ireland, has lashed out at the growing number of anti-mass migration protests taking place in the country, attacking those attending the demonstrations for “sowing hate”.

A hardline leftist, Higgins has in the past vocally attacked the takeover of Twitter by the relatively pro-free speech Elon Musk, as well as linking massacres in Africa at the hands of Muslim extremists to climate change rather than radical Islam.

According to a report by the Irish Independent, the president attacked those attending the protests — which have cropped up across the country in response to the tens of thousands of arrivals that have entered the country over the last twelve months — as “building fear”.

“These people who are going around whipping people up and so forth, you didn’t see them previously making a case for housing, or for women’s rights, or for equal rights of any kind,” the President reportedly alleged, denouncing many demonstrators in Hillary Clinton-like terms “unforgivable”, if not deplorable.

“We are in a position now where we have elements who are not interested in solving the long-standing problems within communities or the new arrivals,” he claimed.

“You mustn’t give them the opportunity.”

While Higgins appears keen to attack those attending the growing protests as stirring both “fear” and “hate”, polling released on Sunday appears to indicate the general perspective of the Irish public is radically different.

When asked about the tens of thousands of migrants brought into Ireland — a relatively small country with a population far lower than many individual U.S. states — 56 per cent of respondents said that the island nation had brought in too many last year.

A plurality also appeared to back the protests, with 48 per cent of people saying that the demonstrations were made up predominantly of concerned citizens, compared to 44 per cent who believe they are made up mostly of “far-right agitators”.

The immigration situation is likely to only get worse in Ireland, however, with the authorities in the country now looking at housing foreign migrants in schools as other accommodation options dry up, with around 180,000 refugees and asylum seekers expected to be in the country by the end of this year.

Roderic O’Gorman, Ireland’s so-called integration minister, has also said that he would “like to see” Ireland also allowing in migrants supposedly fleeing climate change if it represented a shift in policy at the international level.

“I think all of Europe is going to have to expect more migration, more inward migration,” he remarked.

“Parts of Europe have experienced very significant amounts in the last decade. By and large Ireland has been receiving relatively small amounts and I think it’s likely that that’s going to change.”

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/02/05/irish-president-attacks-anti-mass-migration-protesters-for-sowing-hate/