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The German central bank agrees with President Trump! By Jack Hellner

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/02/the_german_central_bank_agrees_with_president_trump.html

In trade relations between Germany and the U.S., the European nation has clearly been on the winning side of unfair policies, and now the president of the nation’s central bank says Germany would “suffer” if President Trump were to implement the same tariffs that they have on us. From Reuters, via Yahoo News:

Trump’s tariff plans put Germany’s growth at particular risk, Bundesbank warns

Germany is particularly vulnerable to US trade tariffs, which could curb growth for years to come and hold back an economy already suffering through two straight years of contraction, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel said on Monday.

Germany, Europe’s largest economy, has been in a deep industrial recession, due in great part to subsidised Chinese output crowding out German products at a time when soaring energy costs at home are already weighing on competitiveness.

Modelling projections based on tariff threats from U.S. President Donald Trump, the Bundesbank concluded that Germany would suffer but the U.S. would also take a hit that would more than offset any positive impact of the trade barriers.

Germany clearly has lots of problems not associated with America. China dumps its products there, and its own “green” policies are hammering citizens with high energy prices.

According to Google AI, Germany’s tariffs on American cars is 10%, plus they have a 19% value added tax. Meanwhile America only has a 2.5% tariff on German cars. That doesn’t sound fair, does it? And after all, all these European progressives are “fairness,” right?

Why should America subsidize Germany’s economy to the tune of $65 billion per year? From the same Reuters item:

The German trade surplus with the United States is heading towards a record level just before U.S. President-elect Donald Trump arrives at the White House, an analysis of statistics office data showed.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

$151M in Food Money for U.S. Soldiers was Spent Elsewhere: Report By Eric Lendrum

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/02/17/151m-in-food-money-for-u-s-soldiers-was-spent-elsewhere-report/

A stunning new report reveals that a significant majority of U.S. Army funding that was designated for food programs for soldiers was spent on other things.

As reported by Breitbart, the claims were made by Military.com, which investigated the funding from the Basic Allowance for Subsistence (BAS) program, which is meant to provide meal funding for junior enlisted soldiers. Out of $225 million collected by BAS in 2024, $151 million did not go towards providing food for soldiers, with only $74 million actually being used for its original purpose.

“It’s just returned to the big pool of army funds, and it’s used someplace else,” said an anonymous Army official.

BAS funding is provided primarily by a “tax on troops,” with approximately $460 being deducted from each soldier’s paycheck every month. Junior enlisted soldiers only make about $30,000 a year, thus amounting to $5,520 – over 1/6th of their earnings – being taken from their paycheck every year for BAS funding.

Military.com’s report was compiled through a study of the 11 largest military bases in 2024. The findings quickly revealed significant differences between the amount of money that was collected and the amount of money that was actually spent.

“Given that the Army operates 104 garrisons, the true amount of unspent funds is likely far higher,” the report notes.

The report led to bipartisan criticism of the Army’s misuse of funds, with Congressman Jul Tokuda (D-Hawaii) issuing a statement saying that “stealing food money from our soldiers is not how we achieve military readiness.”

“The fact that at least $151 million was collected from soldiers and not spent on food as required demands not just an immediate investigation, but swift accountability,” Tokuda added.

OPINION Comments turned off

Reality, Jew Hatred, and Denial of Death Daniel Birger M.D. and Herbert M Wyman MD

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://stephenrittenberg.substack.com/p/reality-jew-hatred-and-denial-of?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true

“The irony of man’s condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink from being fully alive.”

—Ernest Becker

The Garden of Eden myth is the mother of all Utopias. In that perfect creation there is no aggression- the lion lies down peacefully with the lamb-there is no fear, no anxiety, no sex, no shame and there is no death. Blissful ignorance, peace and plenty prevail. In this perfect world Adam made the terrible mistake of opening his ignorant eyes to reality. Giving in to physical desire he eats the fruit of the tree of knowledge and instantly becomes aware of sexuality and of his body. Shame at his nakedness is the first human emotion in response to this biological and physical reality. Fear is the next emotion producing the vain effort to escape from reality by hiding from God. Then in Genesis (3:23) “…the Lord God said, Behold the man is become as one of us to know good and evil, and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever and therefore the Lord sent him forth from the Garden of Eden…” The expulsion occurs along with the death sentence: “you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Death appears as an inevitable, inescapable part of reality.

Death is probably the most difficult part of reality for mankind to accept. Fantasies of immortality have existed since the dawn of civilization. Gods in Greek, Roman, Egyptian and other mythologies live forever. Religions promise life in the hereafter to the right people, and ultimate resurrection to the just. The bitter realities of life—aggression, fear, anxiety, illness, aging and death—have been contested since the dawn of civilization. Utopian ideologies have come and gone, all of them challenging one or another element of reality. All those realities foreshadow the final one, death. As Philip Larkin wrote of death, “the anesthetic from which none come round” in his poem, Aubade: “Most things may never happen: this one will.”

Death’s grievous blow to our narcissism has generated many counter assaults.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Ray Domanico The Nation’s Report Card Should Trigger Alarm Bells Decades of federal, state, and local reforms have largely failed to yield improvements in student achievement.

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/national-assessment-of-educational-progress-results-student-reading-scores

The newly released 2024 results of the Nation’s Report Card, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), contain sobering implications for education policy at the national, state, and local levels. Many have pointed out that the scores appear largely unchanged from two years ago, indicating that neither the nation nor New York City and State have bounced back from the learning loss attributed to pandemic-era school closures. That’s true, but long-term trends suggest that average score improvements had already stalled by the mid-2010s, well before Covid-related disruptions. Current scores, in fact, barely differ from those seen at the turn of the century.

National reading scores in grades four and eight are concerning. The 2024 scores from public schools match levels last seen in the 1990s, before the onset of the “school reform era” (2001 to 2017) of the Bush and Obama administrations, which pursued aggressive federal efforts to improve education. Per NAEP, “In 2024 the average reading score for the nation at grade 4 was 2 points lower compared to 2022 and 5 points lower compared to 2019.” The report card concludes, “Compared to the first reading assessment in 1992, the average score in 2024 was not significantly different.”

Eighth-grade scores followed the same trend: “In 2024, the average reading score for the nation at grade 8 was 2 points lower than 2022 and 5 points lower compared to 2019.” And again: “Compared to the first reading assessment in 1992, the average score was not significantly different in 2024.”

These numbers should trigger alarm bells. First, they confirm that the Covid-era school closures have had an enormous effect on students who in 2020 were in elementary school—the years they should have been learning to read. They also demonstrate that the billions of federal dollars given to school districts in the years since have done little to mitigate the damage.

FOREIGN POLICY Comments turned off

Vance Calls Out the European Commissars And the leftist authoritarians are furious. by Robert Spencer

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/__trashed-3/

JD Vance was about to say “European Commissioners,” but he stopped himself, and instead said “European Commissars.” This was no slip of the tongue. Vance clearly had in mind the commissars of the old Soviet Union, and as he was addressing, at the Munich Security Conference, a roomful of their intellectual children and heirs, his choice of words was entirely apt. Vance was there to call out these cosseted elites, who aren’t used to being called out, and the predictable rage has ensued. But the vice president’s message was prophetic. If European leaders were interested in maintaining their countries as free societies, they would heed him.

“Unfortunately, when I look at Europe today,” Vance said, “it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War’s winners. I look to Brussels, where EU commissars warn citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be, quote, ‘hateful content.’ I look to my own country, where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of, quote, ‘combating misogyny on the internet, a day of action.’”

Vance continued by referring to the flashpoint for the freedom of speech today, the point at which it is most heatedly disputed: the burning of the Qur’an. “I look to Sweden,” he said, “where two weeks ago the government convicted a Christian activist for participating in Koran burnings that resulted in his friend’s murder. As the judge in his case chillingly noted, Sweden’s laws to supposedly protect free expression do not, in fact, grant, and I’m quoting, ‘a free pass to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief.’”

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Trudeau-One thing about Stupid-it’s contagious Diane Bederman

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://dianebederman.com/trudeau-one-thing-about-stupid-its-contagious/

One thing about Stupid-it’s contagious

Dear Canadians now booing the American anthem. You stand with Trudeau’s sudden case of righteousness regarding big, bad, old Trump and his calls for the annexation of Canada and implementation of tariffs.

Where were you when Trudeau stamped out the rights of hard-working  TRUCK-DRIVING Canadians when they refused to get the Covid shot after driving all over Canada and the USA, with no open rest stops or restaurants? He called these people and those of us standing with their right not to be jabbed; racists and misogynists .

January, 2022

“Yes, we will get out of this pandemic by vaccination. We all know people who are a little bit hesitant. We will continue to try and convince them, but there are also people who are fiercely against vaccination,”

“They are extremists who don’t believe in science, they’re often misogynists, also often racists. It’s a small group that muscles in, and we have to make a choice in terms of leaders, in terms of the country. Do we tolerate these people? Or do we say, hey, most of the Quebecois people – 80% – are vaccinated. We want to come back to things we like doing. It’s not those people who are blocking us.”

HOMELAND SECURITY, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Texas: Muslim cleric announces construction of new Muslims-only enclave near Dallas Robert Spencer

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://jihadwatch.org/2025/02/texas-muslim-cleric-announces-construction-of-new-muslims-only-enclave-near-dallas?utm_source=

Allahu Akbar, Texas… A New Sharia City Near Dallas! THIS is how no-go zones begin. THIS is how the West falls… Radical Imam Yasir Qadhi—a terror-linked extremist—is now building EPIC City, a 1,000+ home Islamic stronghold just 30 minutes from Dallas, complete with Sharia-compliant schools, a mosque, and commercial hubs. And he’s selling it to non-Americans, pushing an Islamic separatist agenda right in the heart of Texas.

For many years I warned that Sharia enclaves would be established, and would continue to expand until conflict became inevitable. This was, of course, denounced as “Islamophobia.”

ISRAEL Comments turned off

Netanyahu’s tightrope, Trump’s net Ruthie Blum

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://www.jns.org/netanyahus-tightrope-trumps-net/

The Israeli opposition and so-called “international community” have spent most of the past 16 months lobbing two key demands—or accusations—at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu. One is that he must introduce a clear plan for the “day after” Hamas. The other is that he “bring home all the hostages now.”

Busy fighting an existential defensive war against the terrorists who gleefully perpetrated the massacre of 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023, he has been unable to give a definitive answer. He did assert, however, that the Palestinian Authority could not assume any role in Gaza. “I will not allow us to replace Hamastan with Fatahstan,” he told the now-former administration in Washington.   

The second rebuke was akin to alleging that Bibi was holding the hostages in his basement. Never mind that he was deploying the might of the Israel Defense Forces to search for them while battling the barbarians responsible for their plight—those continuing to commit the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust.

Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump answered both. First, he announced that the United States would take control of Gaza. Then—after witnessing the condition of the three men emerging last Saturday from captivity looking as though they’d been liberated from Auschwitz, and hearing Hamas say that it wouldn’t free the next three the following week—he delivered an ultimatum.

“If all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday, [Feb. 15] at 12 o’clock … I would say, cancel [the ceasefire deal] and all bets are off and let hell break out,” he declared to reporters at the White House. “And if they’re not returned—all of them, not in drips and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two–by Saturday at 12 o’clock … all hell is going to break out.”

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Trump’s Opening Move Against Migrant Sex Trafficking By Madeleine Rowley

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://www.thefp.com/p/trumps-opening-move-against-migrant?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Mellissa Harper, who was installed a few weeks ago as the temporary head of the federal government’s Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), is wasting no time making important and necessary changes to the agency’s infamous Unaccompanied Alien Children program. On Friday, the agency released new guidance that will make it more difficult for members of transnational criminal organizations and pimps to “sponsor” teenage migrants and then traffic them for sex or labor. The problem grew significantly under the Biden administration, with three times more victims applying for government benefits under the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act during the Biden administration.

The most significant change is that all potential sponsors must be fingerprinted, and the fingerprints must be sent to the FBI to check for criminal records. No child will be released to a sponsor until their fingerprints are recorded in the unaccompanied child’s file. In addition, all identification documents must be legible and unexpired.

Critics of the Trump administration’s immigration policy complain that cumbersome fingerprinting and identification rules could delay the vetting of sponsors, leading to a backlog and overcrowding in shelters that house unaccompanied children. They also fear that under Harper, who has been an official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement since 2007, ORR will share information about the sponsors, most of whom are illegal immigrants themselves, with ICE, making it easier to arrest and deport them. But Harper was unapologetic in an email to the ORR staff. “The pervasive fraud in the sponsor process is undeniable,’ she wrote.

ANTI-SEMITISM, EDUCATION Comments turned off

Welcome to Hamassachusetts By Frannie Block and Will Sussman

Posted By on February 18th, 2025

https://www.thefp.com/p/welcome-to-hamassachusetts?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

‘Rampant and ubiquitous antisemitism’ is making its way into the largest teachers union in New England, lawmakers say.

Inside the Massachusetts statehouse on Monday, State Representative Simon Cataldo displayed the image of a dollar bill folded into a Star of David in front of a packed audience of teachers, activists, and staffers. They were there to attend a hearing on the state of antisemitism in Massachusetts public schools.
(All visuals courtesy of the Massachusetts Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism)

“You’d agree that this is antisemitic imagery, correct?” Cataldo, who co-chairs the state’s Special Commission on Combating Antisemitism, asked Max Page, the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA)—the largest union in New England, representing 117,000 members.

“I’m not gonna evaluate that,” Page responds calmly.

Cataldo pressed him. “Is it antisemitic?”

Page continued to sit stoically, before breaking into a smile. “You’re trying to get away from the central point,” Page said, “which is that we provide imagery, we provide resources for our members to consider, in their own intelligent, professional way.”

In fact, this image is referenced in materials recently made available to Massachusetts educators for teaching about the Middle East. Entitled “Resources on Israel and Occupied Palestine,” the union’s Training and Professional Learning Division developed the framework “for learning about the history and current events in Israel and Occupied Palestine, for MTA members to use with each other and their students.” Last December, the union published the resource document on a webpage accessible only to MTA members.