Brits Break for Brexit

Last Friday, the Dow Jones plummeted 600 points in a single day. Other financial markets went into panic mode.  Over $2 trillion was wiped off the global markets.  Countless financial reporters spoke of shock and awe.  Disaster!  Tumult!  Historic repercussions!

So, what happened, exactly? Was the President assassinated?  Did ISIS blow up Jerusalem?  Did astronomers discover an asteroid eighteen hours from Earth?  Did the Pope die?  Did the Anti-Christ appear?  Has an outbreak of new, incurable form of the bubonic plague broken out?

Has Jar-Jar Binks been signed to appear in the next Star Wars movie?

No, no. Something apparently even more earth-shattering than Jar-Jar Binks’ resurrection has shaken the financial world to its core:  The voters of Great Britain voted on Friday in favor of exiting from the European Union.

Media reports and newspaper accounts have been full of shock and awe, plunging economic indicators, and angry denouncements of Great Britain’s decision, with Ireland and Scotland vowing to say with the EU and declaring their own independence from Great Britain itself.

In reading about the overwhelmingly negative reactions to the news, it’s been difficult to discover just why this is such a disaster. I got the most intelligible answer from my 92 year-old mother:  Great Britain’s money is in the European Central Bank (which is in Frankfurt, Germany, not Brussels, Belgium).  If Great Britain withdraws its money from the ECB, she says a great deal of money will

The purpose of the ECB is to guarantee price stability in the Eurozone. The 1,500 member banks in effect borrow cash and must pay it back; the short durations allow interest rates to be adjusted continually. When the repo notes come due the participating banks bid again. An increase in the quantity of notes offered at auction allows an increase in liquidity in the economy.

A decrease has the contrary effect. The contracts are carried on the asset side of the European Central Bank’s balance sheet and the resulting deposits in member banks are carried as a liability. In layman terms, the liability of the central bank is money, and an increase in deposits in member banks, carried as a liability by the central bank, means that more money has been put into the economy.

But, while the United Kingdom is a non-Euro area member, meaning it decided to keep its own currency – the pound sterling – rather than converting over to the Euro, the Pound Sterling is still in play. Eight other nations chose to do the same.  Great Britain has a modest sum invested in the ECB.  The amount is small compared to that of France and Germany.  Therefore, Great Britain’s departure from the European Union would hardly break the bank of Europe.

Other matters, controlled by the EU’s capital, Brussels, were of more concern to the average Brits. Financially, single trade was a factor.  Two of the original core objectives of the European Economic Community were the development of a common market, subsequently renamed the single market, and a customs union between its member states.

No customs are levied on goods travelling within the customs union and—unlike a free trade area—members of the customs union impose a common external tariff on all goods entering the union. One of the consequences of the customs union is that the European Union negotiates as a single entity in international trade deals such as the World Trade Organization, instead of individual member states negotiating for themselves.

The free movement of persons means that EU citizens can move freely between member states to live, work, study or retire in another country. This required the lowering of administrative formalities and recognition of professional qualifications of other states. This provision has turned out to be devastating for Europe and particularly Great Britain.

London’s new mayor, its first Muslim, Sadiq Khan, has vowed to not follow Great Britain’s lead in slowing immigration. Some opponents of the Brexit have even declared that London – England’s capital city – should secede from Great Britain.

What’s shocking to Liberal sensibilities evidently is Great Britain’s rejection of group think. The first seeds of a European Union were planted just after World War II, when countries on the Continent feared a resurrection of the kind of nationalism that ignited Europe in the flames of war.

Communists are curiously silent on their role in World War II. Generally, it was fear of Communism that enabled Adolf Hitler to gain power.  Stories were coming back from Russia of the horrors of – and the rebellions against – Communism.  Still, Hitler was a monster and the Communists were all too happy to let him have all the infamy.  Once Europe was secure – in due part to Stalin’s willingness to commit troops to the cause – the Communists rounded up all the emigres who’d fled the “glories” of Communism and promptly threw them into the gulags.

We now hear, after the fact, that Brussels was exercising an iron arm, dictating to the European Union residents every facet of their lives. The European Union is not an elected body; they are bureaucrats, accountable to no one, much like our own shadow-government bureaucracy.

Proscriptions on toasters and hairdryers are only the tip of the European Union iceberg no doubt.

England’s 2011 census indicated that 12.4 percent of London’s population was Muslim. Reports from English residents say that the increasingly minority white, Christian population is being pushed farther to the north.  Other reports give a much lower percentage.  However, Great Britain has spoken, and with only a bare majority (51.9 percent) to get out of the European Union while the getting is not just good, but still possible.

“England for the English!” they cry, and good for them. Well done, England.

 

 

 

Orlando and the U.S. Department of Jobbery

According to Fox News: “Under pressure from Republican leaders, the Justice Department on Monday afternoon reversed itself and released a full, uncensored transcript of the Orlando terrorist’s 911 call on the night of the massacre, calling the morning’s furor over omissions in the document “an unnecessary distraction.”

“An earlier version of the transcript had deleted the word “Islamic State” and the name of ISIS leader “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.” Omar Mateen made the 50-second 911 call in which he claimed responsibility for the terror attack and pledged allegiance to Islamic State’s leader at 2:35 a.m. The call came just over a half hour into the June 12 slaughter at gay nightclub Pulse.

“’I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may God protect him [in Arabic], on behalf of the Islamic State,” Mateen says on the new transcript.

“The old version had several words scrubbed and read: ‘I pledge allegiance to [omitted] may God protect him [in Arabic], on behalf of [omitted].’

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called the earlier decision by DOJ and the FBI to release only a partial transcript ‘preposterous.’”

Since Mateen shot up the gay nightclub in Orlando on June 12, Obama has had to walk a narrow ledge between his liberal, gay constituents and his Muslim constituents.   Had a white, middle-aged man murdered 49 gays, his job would have been easy.  The slaughter would have been the act of simple bigotry; the guy hated gays – and so do all white Christian Conservatives all over America.

While 83 percent of Americans consider themselves “Christian” and 89 percent believe in God, those numbers have declined since the Millennial Generation has come of age. Even fewer Christians believe in the dictates of the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, concerning Christianity, even though Jesus and the Apostles reaffirmed God’s position on homosexuality.

In the best tradition of Nimrod, however, more Americans have raised the Gay Pride flag, defying God’s position on this practice. By Genesis 6, the Hebrew God had already had enough of Man and destroyed the earth with a flood to punish mankind for his violence, his deceit, and his abominable sexual practices, leaving only Noah, his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives.

Unfortunately for Noah and mankind, he brought his troubles with him in the form of Ham, the son said to be somewhat immature and wicked. His name means, “burnt, swarthy, dark-skinned.”  His irreverence for his father (some say it was more than mere irreverence) brought his father’s curse upon him and his off-spring.

Noah’s great-grandson, Nimrod, being angry at God for wiping the wicked from the Earth, built the tower of Babel to defy God, to tell him off, as it were. He went about all the lands urging people to reject God and revere only human flesh.  He counseled people to ignore God’s teachings and admonitions, and do what pleased them best.

The celebration of Halloween, or All Hallow’s Eve, is holiday in honor of all the wicked who perished in the Great Flood. God Himself regretted the destruction of the Flood and raised a rainbow.

God said to Noah, “And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.

And God said, “This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of covenant between me and the earth.”

Not until Exodus 20 did God lay down the law to his creation, and they tried him sorely in that time period. Nimrod and his followers spread their false, pagan religions, which were tributes to Nimrod himself, in various forms, and to his wife, Semiramis of Babylon.  She deified him after his Great Uncle Shem tracked him down in Egypt, put him on formal trial for blasphemy, and had him executed.

Nimrod’s remains were scattered all over the Middle East as a warning to his followers. Instead, she picked up the pieces and had shrines constructed to him.  Transmogrified the pair would become the gods and goddesses of classical culture.

Knowledge of the gods and goddesses has degenerated into myths in Western culture. In the Middle East, not much has changed since the Seventh Century.  The Muslims take a dim view, indeed, of fornication, adultery, promiscuity, and homosexuality.  Especially the last.  Adulterers are regularly stoned in the Middle East and homosexuals are thrown off of buildings.

So here’s the problem for Obama, the Secret Muslim: where do his loyalties lie?  With his childhood religion, Islam?  Or with the counter culture that helped elect him?  Islam and homosexuality do not make very good bedfellows.

Since the shooting in Orlando, media types from both sides of the aisle have been eager to join the funeral cortege. An assistant district attorney was just fired for noting that “downtown Orlando is a Third-World ghetto of miscreants and thugs.”

“Pulse – the premier nightclub for Orlando’s Gay Community” as the advertisement says is not exactly the same as an advertisement for Disneyworld, where you can no longer sing about not smiling at a crocodile, cousin to the alligator.

While that alligator has done for Disneyworld – and Orlando – what Mateen did for Pulse, no one’s about to clean out the swamp of downtown Orlando or even suggest doing so. If God had wanted to do something about downtown Orlando, He has plenty of means at his disposal, if He has promised never again to use floodwaters.  He could have just sent the alligators.

But He didn’t and he certainly didn’t Mateen’s help. Being humans and humane, we want to feel sympathy and pity for his 49 victims.  Yet, sympathy can only get you so far.  No one wants to see bar patrons of any persuasion shot up in such a mass of humanity that the first responders can’t get to them.  Still, the hour – 3 a.m. – the particular nature of this nightclub and its patrons – the club features a Drag Queen stage – and the overzealousness of the gay activists to demand sympathy – rainbow flags are waving everywhere – seriously strains one’s sensibilities.

Are we mourning the deaths of 49 unarmed nightclub patrons? Or are we promoting a cause in which we really don’t believe and maybe even disapprove, but dare not question thanks to the inculcation of political correctness?  The activists wave their rainbow flags from a daunting height on the graves of these 49 people.

Obama said just today or yesterday that dismantling the Iranian nuclear deal would foment even more terrorism. What does he think raising a gay pride flag will do?

The city of Clifton, N.J., is having its own Muslim versus Gay Pride showdown tomorrow. Breaking a tie vote on the city council, Clifton’s Mayor, James Anzaldi, voted to allow Garden State Equality, an LGBT activist group, to proceed with the flag raising tomorrow, June 24.

I must say, although I often cover Clifton’s activities, I’m glad the banner newspaper, the Bergen Record wants to cover this event all by itself.  Evidently, one of the Clifton Journal’s staff photographers will have the honor of covering the event for the local news.

The ceremony will take place at the Clifton Municipal Complex, not Main Memorial Park. Main Memorial Park would have been an interesting location, because across the street – in spite of the Bergen Record’s claims that Clifton’s Muslim community is very anxious to assimilate – is a completely, or almost entirely Muslim-owned mall, with the Al-Aqsa Food Market, the Istanbul Café, and the Istikbal Furniture Center, which greets its customers with a sign that reads:  “Welcome Home.”

I’ve spoken with Mayor Anzaldi. He really is such a nice, gentle man.  He wants the best for his community.  He probably knows perfectly well that there’s a growing problem between Clifton’s famed neighborhoods.  As a politician, he can’t speak of it, but Clifton residents have.  Old time residents are very defensive of their city.  They don’t want to see the changes that are coming.

They certainly don’t want a rainbow-colored flag fanning the flames of unrest. Despite what the Bergen Record claims, its Muslim residents are not assimilating at all.  They already have one former elementary school dedicated to Islamic elementary education.  Muslim men glare at the American women, and sometimes even the older Muslim mamas glare at women not donning the hijab.  Older American men, for their part, glare right back, and the American girls (it must be said, in low tops and tight jeans) totally ignore all the glaring.

Clifton has a total of 243 same-sex couples, as of the last census. How many Muslims there are is unclear.  Muslims have been migrating south from the city of Paterson, which raised the Palestinian flag over its city hall for a day.  Some of these Muslims sound like they come from Eastern Europe, not the Middle East.  Possibly, they’re speaking Albanian or Macedonian.

What they’re not speaking is English. Neither are the Hispanics or Mexicans, of course.  English has been on the slippery slope for at least 20 or 30 years now.  An uneasy truce has existed in Clifton (and in the suburbs to its north).

Will that truce be broken as of tomorrow when the Rainbow Flag is raised over Clifton City Hall? What will Mayor Anzaldi do, if it is?  A retaliation may not come right away.  But it will come.  Orlando, the land of Disneyworld for goodness sake, thought it was safe when it allowed Pulse, a gay nightclub, to set up shop.

Our politicians have made the mistake of assuming that America was meant for everyone and if it isn’t, it’s the fault of bigoted, white, Western European immigrants. They believe in a secular America.  But the waves of Muslim immigrants don’t.

Obama doesn’t believe it. Or he doesn’t want us to believe it.  How many more Muslim fanatics will gladly spell it out in blood before he does?  Before the Media does?  We don’t live in Fantasyland.

Don’t fly that flag, Clifton; it simply isn’t worth it. Those activists aren’t worth it (just as a note, the head of the Passaic County GOP is reportedly gay).  Their “cause” isn’t worth it.