Friday, 31 March 2017

Racket of Rackets

KUNSTLER



If you thought banking in our time was a miserable racket — which it is, of course, and by “racket” I mean a criminal enterprise — then so-called health care has it beat by a country mile, with an added layer of sadism and cruelty built into its operations. Lots of people willingly sign onto mortgages and car loans they wouldn’t qualify for in an ethically sound society, but the interest rates and payments are generally spelled out on paper. They know what they’re signing on for, even if the contract is reckless and stupid on the parts of both borrower and lender. Pension funds and insurance companies foolishly bought bundled mortgage bonds of this crap concocted in the housing bubble. They did it out of greed and desperation, but a little due diligence would have clued them into the fraud being served up by the likes of Goldman Sachs.
Medicine is utterly opaque cost-wise, and that is the heart of the issue. Nobody in the system will say what anything costs and nobody wants to because it would break the spell that they work in an honest, legit business. There is no rational scheme for the cost of any service from one “provider” to the next or even one patient to the next. Anyway, the costs are obscenely inflated and concealed in so many deliberately deceptive coding schemes that even actuaries and professors of economics are confounded by their bills. The services are provided when the customer is under the utmost duress, often life-threatening, and the outcome even in a successful recovery from illness is financial ruin that leaves a lot of people better off dead.

More Dangerous Than the NSA? The Massive Spy Agency You Haven't Heard Of

Anti Media



If you’re one of the countless Americans who was distraught to learn of the revelations made by former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden, the mere idea that there might be yet another agency out there — perhaps just as powerful and much more intrusive —  should give you goosebumps.
Foreign Policy reports that the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, or NGA, is an obscure spy agency former President Barack Obama had a hard time wrapping his mind around back in 2009. But as the president grew fond of drone warfare, finding a way to launch wars without having to go through Congress for the proper authorization, the NGA also became more relevant. Now, President Donald Trump is expected to further explore the multibillion-dollar surveillance network.

The Ticking Time Bomb That Will Wipe Out Virtually Every Pension Fund In America

The Economic Collapse

Are millions of Americans about to see the big, juicy pensions that they were counting on to fund their golden years go up in flames in the biggest financial disaster in U.S. history? When Bloomberg published an editorial entitled “Pension Crisis Too Big for Markets to Ignore“, it simply confirmed what a lot of people already knew to be true.  Pension funds all over America are woefully underfunded, and they have been pouring mind boggling amounts of money into very risky investments such as Internet stocks and commercial mortgages.  Just like with subprime mortgages in 2008, this is a crisis that everyone can see coming well in advance, and yet nothing is being done about it.
On a day to day basis, Americans generally don’t think very much about pensions.  Most of those that have been promised pensions simply have faith that they will be there when they need them.

Our Economies Run On Housing Bubbles

The Automatic Earth



We are witnessing the demise of the world’s two largest economic power blocks, the US and EU. Given deteriorating economic conditions on both sides of the Atlantic, which have been playing out for many years but were so far largely kept hidden from view by unprecedented issuance of debt, the demise should come as no surprise.
The debt levels are not just unprecedented, they would until recently have been unimaginable. When the conditions for today’s debt orgasm were first created in the second half of the 20th century, people had yet to wrap their minds around the opportunities and possibilities that were coming on offer. Once they did, they ran with it like so many lemmings.

Here’s Why Italy’s Banking Crisis Has Gone Off the Radar

Wolf Street

By Don Quijones, Spain & Mexico, editor



For a country that is on the brink of a gargantuan public bailout of its toxic-loan riddled banking sector, or failing that, a full-blown financial crisis that could bring down the European financial system, things are eerily quiet in Italy these days. It’s almost as if the more serious the crisis gets, the less we hear about it — otherwise, investors and voters might get spooked. And elections are coming up.



But an article published in the financial section of Italian daily Il Sole lays out just how serious the situation has become. According to new research by Italian investment bank Mediobanca, 114 of the close to 500 banks in Italy have “Texas Ratios” of over 100%. The Texas Ratio, or TR, is calculated by dividing the total value of a bank’s non-performing loans by its tangible book value plus reserves — or as American money manager Steve Eisman put it, “all the bad stuff divided by the money you have to pay for all the bad stuff.”



Cont.....  

The F-35 Is a $1.4 Trillion National Disaster

War Is Boring



The F-35 still has a long way to go before it will be ready for combat. That was the parting message of Michael Gilmore, the now-retired Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, in his last annual report.



The Joint Strike Fighter Program has already consumed more than $100 billion and nearly 25 years. Just to finish the basic development phase will require at least an extra $1 billion and two more years. Even with this massive investment of time and money, Gilmore told Congress, the Pentagon and the public, “the operational suitability of all variants continues to be less than desired by the Services.”



Cont....   

More Ridiculous Brexit Discussions Regarding “Control”: Domino Theory in Play?

MishTalk



The EU took a tough stance in Brexit negotiations, formalizing previous warnings in negotiating guidelines that European Commission president Donald Tusk sent to 27 EU capitals.

How to Protect Your Online Privacy Now That Congress Sold You Out

Popular Mechanics



All your private online data—the websites you visit, the content of your chats and emails, your health info, and your location—just became suddenly less secure. Not because of hackers, but because Congress just blocked crucial privacy regulations. This will allow your internet service provider to collect all your data and sell that info to the highest bidder without asking you first. Welcome to a brave new world.



A pair of resolutions, which passed through the Senate and House with exclusively Republican votes, roll back rules proposed by the Democratic leadership of the Federal Communications Commission during the Obama administration which, though passed in October, had not yet gone into effect.



Cont.....   

L.A. to Worsen Housing Shortage with New Rent Controls

Mises Wire



Los Angeles, home to one of the least affordable housing markets in North America, is now proposing to expand rent control to "fix" its housing problem. 
As with all price control schemes, rent control will serve only to make housing affordable to a small sliver of the population while rendering housing more inaccessible to most. 
Specifically, city activists hope that a new bill in the state legislature, AB1506, will allow local governments, Los Angeles included, to expand the number of units covered by rent control laws while also restricting the extent to which landlords can raise rents. 

Facial Recognition Tech Could Ensnare Millions of Innocent Americans for Crimes They Didn’t Commit

SHTFplan



It’s often the case that new technologies arrive on the scene faster than our society and its legal code can keep up. Sometimes this can be a good thing. For instance, 3D printing allows people to print out unregulated gun parts, thus allowing gun owners to circumvent the onerous laws of our government, which has struggled to come up with new laws to restrict the technology.



When technology advances at a breakneck pace however, it can also be quite dangerous for our liberties. This is especially true in regards to privacy. If a new technology makes it easy for the government to track us, you can bet that the government is going to take its sweet time updating the legal code in a way that will protect us from surveillance.



Cont...  

The Stage Is Being Set for War Between the U.S. And China in the S. China Sea

Anti Media



Adding fuel to an already highly combustible situation in Southeast Asia, Reuters reported Tuesday that China has “largely completed major construction of military infrastructure on artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea,” and that the Asian superpower “can now deploy combat planes and other military hardware there at any time.”
Citing satellite imagery analyzed by the Asian Maritime Transparency Initiative, part of Washington, D.C.’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, the news agency writes that “work on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief Reefs in the Spratly Islands included naval, air, radar and defensive facilities.”
Sticking to the mainstream narrative that China is an aggressor in claiming sovereign rights to the majority of the South China Sea, Pentagon spokesman Commander Gary Ross says the new images confirm what the U.S. military already knows.

Thursday, 30 March 2017

You Will Never Hear These Truths Discussed In The Mainstream

Alt-Market

The general public truly lives in two separate worlds. We have the world of the mainstream media, popular culture and political rhetoric; a world which constantly and desperately seeks to twist or destroy any legitimate measure of reality, leading people into a frenzied fog. Then, we have the world of concrete facts; an ugly, brutal world that upsets many people when they see it and leaves them with little more than the hope that the most innovative of us will perhaps reverse the disastrous course, or at least, survive to carry on a meaningful level of civilization.
The sad thing is, if a majority of the population studied and accepted the world of fact, then preparation and intelligent or aggressive action might negate any destructive outcome. Reality only grows more ugly because we continue to ignore it.
Have you ever come to a logical or practical conclusion in response to a national or global problem and waited in vain to hear it represented in the mainstream? Have you ever thought — if I can figure this out, why can’t they? And by “they,” I mean the people most commonly offered a mainstream platform. This includes so called “professional journalists,” political leaders, mainstream economists, highly paid “analysts,” etc. Well, I think more and more Americans in particular are finally considering the notion that these “professionals” are either not very smart, or they have an agenda that seeks to perpetuate the problem rather than fix the problem.

Congressional Motto Needed: I Propose “To Rob and Plunder”

MishTalk



I did a search for a Congressional Motto for the US and came up empty.
In the wake of a Republican sellout to Comcast, ATT, and Verizon, a slogan is badly needed.
I propose “To Rob and Plunder“.
What happened?
Yesterday, the Republican House passed a bill that allows internet providers from selling nearly everything you do to the highest bidder.
The legislation goes far beyond Google displaying ads based searches you do.

The Cumulative Effective Tax Rate

The Daily Sheeple

By Susan Boskey
Early Americans would roll over in their graves if they heard about modern-day America’s topsy-turvy departure from many of the hard-won freedoms and liberties of the American Revolution. They would be unable to make sense of all the different taxes we pay today, and especially the government’s legal entitlement to a portion of an American’s labor via an income tax. There was no such tax on labor for the earliest Americans; it was unconscionable to tax someone’s personal property, which one’s labor was then considered. The concept of paying one’s “fair share” did not exist until after mid-20th century.
In general, operating expenses of private corporations and the federal, state and corporate-county municipal governments are passed on to the end users (public) in the form of taxation.

Meet Pharmacy Benefit Managers – ‘The Most Profitable Corporations You’ve Never Heard Of’

Liberty Blitzkrieg



When I first started becoming aware of how sleazy, parasitic and corrupt the U.S. economy was, I only had expertise in one industry, financial services. Coming to grips with the blatant criminality of the TBTF Wall Street banks and their enablers at the Federal Reserve and throughout the federal government, I thought this was the main issue that needed to be confronted. What I’ve learned in the years since is pretty much every industry in America is corrupt to the core, more focused on sucking money away from helpless citizens via rent-seeking schemes versus actually producing a product and adding value. Unfortunately, the healthcare industry is no exception.
Today’s post zeros in on a particular slice of that industry. A group of companies known as Pharmacy Benefit Managers, or PBMs. Companies that seem to extract far more from the public than they give back. It’s a convoluted sector that is difficult to get your head around, which is why we should be thankful that David Dayen wrote an excellent piece on the topic recently. What follows are merely excerpts from his lengthy and highly informative piece, The Hidden Monopolies That Raise Drug Prices. I strongly suggest you read the entire thing.

"Trickle Down" Has Failed; Wealth and Income Have "Trickled Up" to the Top .5%

oftwominds - Charles Hugh Smith:

Central bank policies have generated a truly unprecedented "trickle-up" of wealth and income to the top .5%.
Over the past 20 years, central banks have run a gigantic real-world experiment called "trickle-down." The basic idea is Keynesian (i.e. the mystical and comically wrong-headed cargo-cult that has entranced the economics profession for decades): monetary stimulus (lowering interest rates to zero, juicing liquidity, quantitative easing, buying bonds and other assets-- otherwise known as free money for financiers) will "trickle down" from banks, financiers and corporations who are getting the nearly free money in whatever quantities they desire to wage earners and the bottom 90% of households.
The results of the experiment are now conclusive: "trickle-down" has failed, miserably, totally, completely.
It turns out (duh!) that corporations didn't use the central bank's free money for financiers to increase wages; they used it to fund stock buy-backs that enriched corporate managers and major shareholders.

Making America Insecure Again

Tomgram: Rajan Menon, | TomDispatch

Terror attacks like the recent one in London send a shudder through Americans. Since 9/11, they have been the definition of what TomDispatch regular Rajan Menon calls “national (in)security.” They've also been the lifeblood of a media machine that loves to focus 24/7 on immediate and obvious horrors (especially against folks like “us”). In the age of Donald Trump, preventing such attacks has, if anything, become even more the essence of what American security is all about.
And yet, in the context of the insecurity to come in this world, they are essentially nothing. It is, of course, a terrible thing when some disturbed fanatic or set of fanatics gun down or run down innocent civilians in London, BerlinParis, or San Bernardino (as it should be, but in our American world isn’t, when a U.S. plane or drone kills innocent civilians in distant lands). But if, for a moment, you stop to think in either nuclear terms (as in the pairing of North Korea’s unnerving leader Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump) or in climate change terms, then those attacks are the smallest of potatoes when it comes to national insecurity. If you really want to think about acts of “terror,” consider what Donald Trump and his climate-denying crew at the Environmental Protection Agency and elsewhere in his administration would like to do to the environmental policies of the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
Trump's urge is clearly to negate every positive act of the Obama administration when it comes to reining in the use of fossil fuels -- from the Paris climate agreement to the Clean Power Plan aimed at shutting down coal-fired power plants. In the end, if a Trump presidency takes this country out of the climate change sweepstakes entirely, if it opens the flood (and fracking) gates yet wider on the development of fossil fuels of every sort while tamping down the development of alternative energy sources, you’re talking about an act of terror on a scale that would once have been inconceivable. What the Trump administration is already trying to do should lead to constant headlines of a sort that would put the recent London ones to shame.  However, because the full impact of Trump’s climate terror won’t strike home until the era of our grandchildren or even great-grandchildren, because his version of terror will be enacted on a time scale that plays havoc with our usual sense of history and of our own lives, he’ll undoubtedly get only the most modest of attention for it -- while Khalid Masood, the London killer, and his successors will remain the eternal headliners du jour.
Still, make no mistake about it, in his rented vehicle of choice President Trump will run over future generations. Even on a less drastic time scale, as Rajan Menon makes vividly clear today, he will certainly prove to be a heavyweight in the national (in)security business. Tom
National (In)security 
What a Trump Presidency Really Means for Americans at the Edge 
By Rajan Menon
Donald Trump’s supporters believe that his election will end business as usual in Washington. The self-glorifying Trump agrees and indeed his has, so far, been the most unorthodox presidency of our era, if not any era. It’s a chaotic and tweet-driven administration that makes headlines daily thanks to scandals, acts of stunning incompetence, rants, accusations, wild claims, and conspiracy theories.  On one crucial issue, however, Trump has been a complete conformist. Despite the headline-grabbing uproar over Muslim bans and the like, his stance on national security couldn’t be more recognizable. His list of major threats -- terrorism, Iran, North Korea, and China -- features the usual suspects that Republicans, Democrats, and the foreign policy establishment have long deemed dangerous.
Cont.....    

Broken America

The Daily Sheeple



Is this the beginning of the end for the United States of America? It has been said that a house divided against itself will surely fall, and today we live in a shattered union. In all my years, I have never seen so much strife, discord, bitterness and resentment in this country. Everyone can see what is happening, but nobody can seem to stop it. Politically, you have got tens of millions of people trying to pull America one way, and you have got tens of millions of people trying to pull it the exact opposite way. As I discussed in a previous article, the term “civil war” is now being thrown around by some pundits even though nobody has started shooting yet. We are a deeply divided and broken nation, and if we don’t find a way to fix things America will not survive.
Every survey and opinion poll that has been taken recently backs up what I am saying. For example, a Gallup survey that was conducted after the election in November found that an all-time record high 77 percent of all Americans believe that “the nation is divided on the most important values”…

Social Justice Warriors and Bubonic Plague:Is There a Difference?

Fred On Everything



Today I will explain why America is going to hell, and probably deserves it. It has to do with conservatives and liberals, who may be thought of as Woofers and Tweeters. They should all be taken out and shot. The country would then be a much better place. Worth a try, anyway.
Some observations:

Banks Secretly Report All Cash Transactions to the Police

Armstrong Economics



I have warned that governments around the world are engaged in the greatest collection of data in human history, tracking everything we do because they are going broke. This is just the hunt for money pretending to be looking for terrorists. Collecting every phone call, email, and text message is far too much data to ever allow preventative action. They have been limiting cash everywhere. India simply cancelled the currency overnight to eliminate cash. Now, New Zealand banks are being ordered to provide police with customer details on each and EVERY cash transaction over $10,000, claiming this is a crackdown on money laundering and the potential financing of terrorism. Of course, the money laundering really means hiding money from the government to avoid taxes.



Cont....  

FULL STEAM AHEAD

Bad Brexit Deal Better Than No Deal? Mathematical Idiocy! Odds of No Deal?

MishTalk



At the top of the list of absurd Brexit advice is the notion that a bad deal is better than no deal.
But that’s what Andrew Duff at the European Policy Center says.

Obamacare 'Explosion' Could Come On May 22nd, Here's Why

Zero Hedge



After a stunning healthcare defeat last week, delivered at the hands of his own party no less, Trump took to twitter to predict the imminent 'explosion' of Obamacare.

As it turns out, that 'explosion' could come faster than anyone really expects as legislators and health insurers have to make several critical decisions about the 2018 plan year over the next 2 months which could seal Obamacare's fate.
As the Atlanta Journal Constitution points out today, the Trump administration has until May 22nd to decide whether they will continue to pursue the Obama administration's appeal to provide subsidies to insurers who participate in the federal exchanges. 
Of course, any decision to remove those subsidies would likely result in yet another massive round of premium hikes and further withdrawals from the already crippled exchanges where an astounding number of counties across the country have already been cut to just 1 health insurance provider.  And, as we've pointed out before, higher rates = lower participation = deterioration of risk pool = higher rates....and the cycle just repeats until it eventually collapses.


As background, in 2014, House Republicans sued the Obama administration over the constitutionality of the cost-sharing reduction payments (a.k.a. "taxpayer funded healthcare subsidies"), which had not been appropriated by Congress.  Republicans won the initial lawsuit but the Obama administration subsequently appealed and now Trump's administration can decide whether to pursue the appeal or not.

12 people, things that ruined the EU

POLITICO



Last weekend, European leaders gathered in Rome for the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. They discussed, not for the first time, how to get the EU back on track. And they told each other they are still committed to the Union and believe in its future. (We’ve heard that one before, too.)
But let’s just suppose that, when the European leaders sat down for lunch at the Quirinal Palace, some of them had a little too much of the pinot grigio and waxed nostalgic about the days when the idea of a united Europe was still young and promising and beautiful. And then they talked about this week and how British Prime Minister Theresa May would send her goodbye letter and they started slurring their words, saying Grexit, Brexit, Frexit, and they finally admitted to each other that something has gone horribly wrong.

CBO Warns Of Fiscal Catastrophe As A Result Of Exponential Debt Growth In The U.S.

Zero Hedge



In a just released report from the CBO looking at the long-term US budget outlook, the budget office forecasts that both government debt and deficits are expected to soar in the coming 30 years, with debt/GDP expected to hit 150% by 2047 if the current government spending picture remains unchanged.
The CBO's revision from the last, 2016 projection, shows a marked deterioration in both total debt and budget deficits, with the former increasing by 5% to 146%, while the latter rising by almost 1% from 8.8% of GDP to 9.6% by 2017.

The Political Parties Are An Illusion Designed To "Relegate The Governed To A Position Barely Above That Of Cattle"

SHTFplan



As I wrote in several previous articles:

  1. The President cannot be completely assessed for effectiveness until the first 6 months have passed in this term,
  1. He needs to attain success within the first year (and optimally within the first six months) as the midterm election campaigning will begin for both houses of Congress in November. The President needs solid victories and a concrete direction for the administration to ensure no flip-flops and a loss of control of the Congress, and
  1. He must overcome the true masters of this country, as both political parties are an illusion with the paradigm shift well under way to loss of Constitutional freedoms and the “crafting” of transition to global governance with abrogation of national sovereignty and identity for Americans.
Over the course of the past week and the attempt to rid the United States of the abomination of Obamacare, the true nature of the state of things…the stance of our government…has revealed itself.  Here is how they have done it:



Cont.... 

"American Psycho" Author Blasts Hollywood Snowflakes For "Childish Meltdowns" Over Trump

Zero Hedge



Bret Easton Ellis, the author of American Psycho, would like for all of his Hollywood snowflake friends to know that he's absolutely sick of their unending "childish meltdowns" over Trump's victory nearly five months ago and he would very much appreciate it if you would stop ruining every single dinner he goes to with you. 
In a new podcast (embedded below), Ellis goes on an epic 35-minute, anti-snowflake, anti-hollywood rant that is pure entertainment.  And Ellis didn't pull any punches either as he took direct aim at the public meltdowns of Barbara Streisand and Lena Dunham telling them to stop "blaming the president for your own problems and neuroses.”

Wednesday, 29 March 2017

So Who Annexed the Crimean Peninsula Then?

Strategic Culture



Due to the international media’s continued claims about the «annexation of Crimea», it’s been difficult for the citizens of the US and Europe to make sense of the details of the peninsula’s recent history. Exactly three years ago, on March 16, 2014, the Crimeans were offered a choice: to rejoin Russia or to return to the constitution of 1992 that proclaimed Crimea a legal, democratic, secular state whose relationship with Ukraine was based on bilateral agreements. That constitution was unilaterally abolished by Kiev on March 17, 1995, and here’s what’s surprising: no one at that time in the West demanded that the Ukrainian government stop violating the provisions of international law and the rights of the inhabitants of the Crimean peninsula. And then in 1995, special ops forces from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Armed Forces of Ukraine (ZSU) landed in Crimea and Sevastopol in order to establish «Ukrainian law and order», seizing the building housing the Supreme Council of the republic, where the administration of the acting president of Crimea, Yuriy Meshkov, was also headquartered, and demanding that he be turned over. Since Meshkov refused to vacate his office, they tried to poison him. Much later he described how his drink had been poisoned, and that later in the hospital he was refused proper medical care. Only an emergency evacuation to Moscow miraculously saved his life.



Cont.....  

SECOND FOUNDATION: EMPIRE CRUMBLING

The Burning Platform



IPart One of this article I analyzed the similarities of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy to Strauss & Howe’s Fourth Turning, trying to assess how Donald Trump’s ascension to power fits into the theories put forth by those authors. In Part Two of this article I compared and contrasted Donald Trump’s rise to power to the rise of The Mule in Asimov’s masterpiece. Unusually gifted individuals come along once in a lifetime to disrupt the plans of the existing social order. Despite the forlorn hope Donald Trump or some other savior can reverse our course, decades of missteps, dreadful decisions, ineffectual leadership, and unconcealed treachery have paved a path to destruction for the American Empire.

American Empire Crumbling

“Mr. Advocate, the rotten tree-trunk, until the very moment when the storm-blast breaks it in two, has all the appearance of might it ever had. The storm-blast whistles through the branches of the Empire even now. Listen with the ears of psychohistory, and you will hear the creaking.” – Isaac Asimov,Foundation
http://static.safehaven.com/authors/burningplatform/33080_b.jpg
“Now any dogma, based primarily on faith and emotionalism, is a dangerous weapon to use on others, since it is almost impossible to guarantee that the weapon will never be turned on the user.” – Isaac AsimovFoundation
The elitist ruling class gathers at Davos and their secretive Bilderberg meetings to plot the course of the world, divvying up the vast wealth plundered through their globalization schemes, and developing the newest propaganda narrative to keep the global masses confused, distracted, and powerless to fight back. Despite their wealth and power, an epic level of hubris is always their undoing.

The Eyes: Windows to the Soul

The Toll Online.com



I wouldn’t be surprised if the week of March 20, 2017, will go down in history as a Fort Sumter-like spark which began a cascading series of events that will soon spread like wildfire, engulfing the entire world with inescapable social and political ramifications.
On Monday, March 20, 2017, elite banker and rabid globalist, David Rockefeller, died at the age of 101. Whenever I think of this disturbing fellow, I picture him behind a mask at a party with Stanley Kubrick and Tom Cruise in that dark mansion from the movie, Eyes Wide Shut.
Although the mainstream media has mostly reported on Rockefeller as a philanthropist, he was, in fact, someone who the journalist and former LBJ aide, Bill Moyers, once called “the unelected but indisputable chairman of the American establishment”.
Rockefeller himself once said:

Harvard Engineers Plan New “Real World” Geoengineering Experiment

The Daily Sheeple

By Derrick Broze
At a recent geoengineering conference two Harvard engineers announced plans for a real-world climate engineering experiment beginning in 2018.
The science of geoengineering has increasingly become a part of the public conversation around climate change and an ever-controversial topic within the scientific community. Geoengineering is a type of weather modification (or climate engineering) which has been researched, but, until recently, has been considered too unpredictable to attempt on a large scale. According to a 2013 congressional report:

Islam, Not Christianity, is Saturating Europe

Gatestone Institute

  • Jihadists seem to be leading an assault against freedom and against secular democracies.
  • Sunni Islam's most prominent preacher, Yusuf al Qaradawi, declared that the day will come when, like Constantinople, Rome will be Islamized.
  • It is Islam, not Christianity, that now saturates Europe's landscape and imagination.
According to US President Trump's strategic advisor Steve Bannon, the "Judeo-Christian West is collapsing, it is imploding. And it's imploding on our watch. And the blowback of that is going to be tremendous".



The impotence and the fragility of our civilization is haunting many Europeans as well.



Europe, according to the historian David Engels will face the fate of the ancient Roman Republic: a civil war. Everywhere, Europeans see signs of fracture. Jihadists seem to be leading an assault against freedom and against secular democracies. Fears occupy the collective imagination of Europeans. A survey of more than 10,000 people from ten different European countries has revealed increasing public opposition to Muslim immigration. The Chatham House Royal Institute of International Affairs carried out a survey, asking online respondents their views on the statement that "all further migration from mainly Muslim countries should be stopped". In the 10 European countries surveyed, an average of 55% agreed with the statement.



Cont..