What I'm Reading: Europe

Life is about patterns and circles. Patterns of behavior, and the social circles prompting that behavior. Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Europe as a whole is Bending to Islam!

  By Rich Kozlovich Tags: The World's Nine Orders

 Denmark

1.   Denmark to Ban Islamic Call to Prayer in Fight Against Creeping ‘Islamization

Germany

1. German Voters Favor Conservatives; Leftists Resort To Guerrilla Tactics 
2. Police Officers: ‘Open Season For Rape’, ‘This Country is Finished’
3. Number of Refugees in Germany Hits Record 4M…
4. $43 Billion Per Year Burden: Migration Costs Hammer German Taxpayers   
5. NO PENSIONS, NO WARSHIPS: Broken Germany To Raise Retirement Age to 70, as Plans Are Scrapped for Its Frigate Program That Already Cost Taxpayers $2.6 Billion
6. German Leftists Meet Jihad Attack With Denial and Fantasy

 Switzerland 

1. Swiss ‘terrorist’ who shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ before stabbing 3 men in crowded train station had ties to ISIS: police 
2. Swiss Stabbing by Muslim Terrorist Who Supported ISIS Blamed on ‘Mental Illness”

 Netherlands

1. Justice in a Dutch Girl’s Death Takes Six Years - Why? Because police and prosecutors wanted to protect Muslim asylum seekers.

Norway

1. Now, a Boy Victim in Norway

Sweden

1.   25-Year-Old Autistic Woman Raped by Her Iraqi Ambulance Transporter in Sweden

The Netherlands and the 20th Theorem of Government

August 30, 2025 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

Ever since unveiling my 20th Theorem of Government, I’ve mostly shared bad news about jurisdictions with profligate politicians (France, Brazil, Colombia, Maryland, Washington, Australia, Germany, and Canada).

My only positive example has been Greece, though I was being somewhat charitable since I was highlighting a five-year period where spending grew by more than 4 percent annually (which was progress since nominal GDP grew more than 8 percent annually over the same years).

Today, I’m going to cite a much more impressive example of spending restraint.

Here’s a chart – based on IMF data – showing that the Netherlands had a seven-year period last decade where spending grew by an average of less than 1 percent annually.

The chart shows the two big consequences on Dutch fiscal discipline.

• The burden of government spending declined by more than 6-percentage points of GDP.
• Spending restraint turned a large budget deficit into a small budget surplus.

The Netherlands is a rare positive case study for my 20th Theorem.

 

But it’s more than that.

Any nation that has a multi-year period with spending growth averaging less than 2 percent annually also qualifies for my Golden Rule Club.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that fiscal policy has deteriorated a bit since the 2010-2017 period.

Government is now consuming 44.7 percent of GDP. That may not seem like an enormous shift, but keep in mind that the Netherlands has some long-term fiscal challenges.

So any slippage is bad news.

P.S. One bright spot is that the Netherlands has a well-regarded system of personal retirement accounts, which I’ve ranked as 4th-best in the world.

Dutch Feminists Protest ‘Femicide’ Instead of Migrant Killer of 17-Year-Old Girl

It was his third sexual crime in five days.

August 24, 2025 by Daniel Greenfield 1 Comment

 A migrant ‘asylum seeker’ living in a shelter for migrants sexually assaulted two women and then murdered another. Lisa, a 17-year-old girl, had been biking home when she realized that she was being followed. She called an emergency number, but by the time the police came, she was already dead. The ‘refugee’ had stabbed her in the neck........While normal Dutch people are talking about the illegal alien crisis, the authorities and Dutch feminists are protesting ‘femicide’ as if there is an upsurge in assaults on women by the native population as opposed to the invasive population........To ReadMore

WW II Cemetery in the Netherlands

By Robin Itzler

Editor's Note:  This is one of the commentaries selected from Robin's weekly newsletter Patriot Neighbors.  Pictures added by me.  If you wish to get the full edition, E-mail her at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com to get on her list, it's free. RK

Given all the insanity, and all the vile attacks against the American culture by insane leftist race mongers and hate mongers, I think this is worth reviewing about how the Dutch treat the American WW II cemetery in the Netherlands

In World War II, approximately 250,000 American soldiers died in Europe fighting to free the continent from Nazi domination. The most famous cemetery is in Normandy, where 9,388 American soldiers are buried. It’s the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, France. 

 

In the Netherlands, there are 10,011 Americans buried or remembered at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten. What makes this cemetery unique?

There are 8,301 graves and 1,722 names inscribed on a wall at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten. Each grave is diligently and lovingly maintained by a Netherlands citizen or family, usually a local. They honor the memory of the soldier who died freeing their nation from Nazi tyranny by regularly visiting and maintaining the gravesite.

 

This is the only cemetery in the Netherlands for American soldiers who died fighting to free the nation from Nazi rule. Decades later, it is still considered an honor to adopt a grave, which is why there is a waiting list.

Rent Control: Learning from Argentina and the Netherlands

September 8, 2024 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

I periodically explain that the world is a laboratory, filled with experiments that teach (or should teach) that we get more prosperity with free markets and limited government.

Today, let’s look at the global laboratory and see what it teaches us about rent control.

But before examining two case studies, I want to share this table from a recent study by the London-based Institute for Economic Affairs. The inescapable conclusion from peer-reviewed research is that rent control has very bad consequences.

Now let’s look at two new case studies.

We’ll start in the Netherlands. In a report for Bloomberg, Cagan Koc and Sarah Jacob explain that the expansion of rent control by the Dutch government is having predictably negative effects.

Moraal is among the growing number of Dutch people struggling to find a rental property after a new law designed to make homes more affordable ended up aggravating a housing shortage. Aiming to protect low-income tenants, the government in July imposed rent controls on thousands of homes, introducing a system of rating properties based on factors such as condition, size and energy efficiency.

The Affordable Rent Act introduced rent controls on 300,000 units… The Netherlands has the highest proportion of rent-controlled homes in Europe… Before the new law came into effect, four-fifths of the country’s 3 million rental properties were subject to controls, and the law raised that to 96%, according to the housing ministry. …

To keep up with population growth, the Netherlands needs about 100,000 new dwellings a year, but over the past decade it’s built an average of two-thirds that many. …middle-income tenants will be hardest hit by the law, says Jasper de Groot, CEO of property listings website Pararius.

Now let’s go across the Atlantic Ocean and into the Southern Hemisphere to learn about what happened when the libertarian president of Argentina, Javier Milei, eliminated rent controls.

Once again, we got predictable results. But unlike the Netherlands, the results in Argentina were wonderfully positive.

Jesus Mesa explains in a column for Newsweek. Here are some excerpts.

Argentina’s recent repeal of rent control by libertarian President Javier Milei has led to a surge in housing supply, with the freedom to negotiate contracts, previously restricted, directly causing a drop in rental prices.

Milei, a self-described “anarcho-capitalist” known for his free-market approach, repealed the 2020 Rental Law, enacted by former leftist President Alberto Fernández, which had imposed restrictions on landlords and led to a significant decline in rental availability. …

The law, introduced in 2020, ended up distorting the real estate market and hurting both landlords and tenants. …by the end of last year, an estimated one in seven homes in Buenos Aires was sitting empty as landlords chose not to rent them out in Argentine pesos. …

But after the repeal, Buenos Aires saw a doubling of available rental units, and rental prices have stabilized. Under the new rules, landlords and tenants have more freedom to agree on lease terms. …Since Millei’s repeal of rent control laws took effect on December 29, the supply of rental housing in Buenos Aires has jumped by 195.23%, according to the Statistical Observatory of the Real Estate Market of the Real Estate College.

I don’t know whether to call this an IQ test or a reading comprehension test, but anyone who thinks the Netherlands approach is better gets a failing grade.

In which case I encourage them to read about the effect of rent control in New York, Berlin, San Francisco, Stockholm, and St. Paul.

And if those don’t convince you either, please don’t impose your ignorance on the rest of us by voting.

Insane Moments in French Taxation

July 2, 2024 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

I wrote yesterday about a strange quirk in the Dutch tax system. That country (which is quite sensible on issues such as personal retirement accounts and school choice) has a very odd way of double taxing income that is saved and invested.

 

Today, we’re going to leave the Netherlands, travel through Belgium, and visit the country that arguably has the developed world’s worst tax system. Yes, I’m referring to France (though I’m open to the argument that Italy might rank even lower). Though, as I’ve warned before, never underestimate the ability of French politicians to take a bad situation and make it even worse.  And that may be about to happen. Alan Katz reports for Bloomberg that the French left wants a 90 percent tax rate on successful taxpayers.

I’m not joking. Here are some excerpts.

France’s leftist alliance would raise the top marginal income tax rate to 90% if it were to take over the government following legislative elections that run through July 7. …the plan was previously in the program of his far-left France Unbowed party. In a budget amendment proposed in 2019, the top rate would apply on taxable income over €411,683 ($440,213). The income tax rate in France currently tops out at 45% on income over €177,106. …

The last time a government tried…a top income tax rate anywhere close to the level proposed by Coquerel…a 75% rate…paid by companies on salaries of more than €1 million. The tax…expired at the end of 2014. …the leftist alliance unveiled its plans…a vast increase in taxation and public spending…and reverse Macron’s pension reform.

So what’s the likelihood of these awful ideas being translated into policy? Based on the first round of the French legislative elections (which took place on Sunday), the likelihood of something bad has increased. That’s because President Macron’s party (which favors the status quo) suffered a a major setback while the hard left and populist right gained ground.

The populist right won the most votes, but that hardly matters since they are not fans of limited government. Indeed, the Economist has an article explaining that the two groups have disturbingly similar plans to expand the fiscal burden of government.

Both blocs’ agendas are “dangerous for the economy”, according to Patrick Martin, the head of MEDEF, a business federation. …On the hard right, Marine Le Pen’s total yearly net spending promises when she ran for president in 2022 amounted to…the equivalent of about 3.5% of GDP. …promises to strike down Mr Macron’s pension reform, which raised the legal minimum retirement age from 62 years to 64… The RN also wants to restore the wealth tax…

The left-wing alliance, dominated by Unsubmissive France, the party of…a one-time Trotskyist, has even more ambitious tax-and-spending plans. …striking down Mr Macron’s pension reform, reintroducing the wealth tax, bringing in an “exit tax” for those leaving the country, scrapping France’s 30% flat tax on financial income, increasing inheritance tax and imposing a tax on “super profits”, whatever they mean by those.

We won’t know the composition of the legislature until the second and final round of the election, which will happen on July 7.  But it’s clear that the two statist blocs will control the vast majority of seats.

However, this doesn’t mean bad policy is a foregone conclusion. My fingers are crossed that they spend so much time fighting each other over issues such as crime and immigration that they forget that they are united in favor of higher taxes and more spending.

The bottom line is that the French public sector already is excessive. Making it an even bigger burden will accelerate the country’s almost-sure-to-happen economic crisis.

P.S. French politics are so absurd that I was only half-joking in 2012 and 2017 when I wrote that voters should pick the socialist over the socialist (and I similarly noted that the socialist beat the socialist in 2022).

P.P.S. In fairness to the current president, at least he has been semi-rational about pension reform (though his policy on wine leaves something to be desired).

P.P.P.S. If the top tax rate on households gets anywhere close to 90 percent and the wealth tax is restored, the combined burden will exceed 100 percent for some taxpayers. A (not-so) grand French tradition.

Strange Moments in Dutch Taxation

July 1, 2024 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

When I write about how we can learn by examining tax policy in other nations, it’s normally because there’s an important policy lesson.

 

• It’s unfortunate to have an income tax.
• Adopting a VAT leads to bigger government.
• Wealth taxes are extraordinarily destructive.
• Class-warfare taxes don’t raise much revenue.

Sometimes, however, I share foreign examples simply because they are odd.

Consider these excerpts from a report by Charlotte Gifford in the U.K.-based Telegraph. It seems that the Netherlands had a very unusual way of double-taxing income that was saved and invested.

The Netherlands is expected to pay billions of pounds in compensation to taxpayers after a divisive levy on investments and second homes was shot down by the Dutch Supreme Court. On 6 June, the court ruled that the country…went against the European Convention on Human Rights because it forced savers and investors to pay tax on income they had not earned.

The decision has opened the door to legal redress for hundreds of thousands of people who were overcharged by the tax authority…based on fictional – rather than actual – returns. …the government assumed that everyone earned a 4pc return on their assets. Taxpayers were then charged 30pc on that yield.

This was regardless of whether they held cash, stocks or property and regardless of how their investments performed. …Savers were effectively punished for holding their money in low-interest accounts, with many forking out more in tax than they earned from their wealth. As a result people were charged effective tax rates of 100pc or more.

As you can see, this approach sometimes led to absurdly high tax rates.

For example, the Dutch government would assume that a household with $100,000 of assets would have $4,000 of earnings. It would then grab $1,200 of taxes.

But what if, in the real world, that household had the money in a bank account paying 1 percent interest. They would have to pay $1,200 of tax even though their earnings were only $1,000. That means a tax rate of more than 100 percent.

Or what if the household had money invested in the stock market and it was a bad year, meaning they lost money or maybe broke even. The government would still demand $1,200 of tax even though there were no earnings. That’s means a tax rate for higher than 100 percent. Infinite!

 

Barack Obama and Francois Hollande would be delighted.

To be fair, this strange system also could mean low tax rates. With the right (smart of lucky) investments, a household with $100,000 of assets might have earnings of $20,000. So a tax of $1,200 would mean a tax rate of 6 percent.

The bottom line if that this approach meant very high tax rates on people when financial markets were weak (or on people who were bad/unlucky investors). But very low tax rates when financial markets were strong (or on people who were good/lucky investors).

Ideally, there should be no double taxation. So if people save and invest their after-tax earnings, there should be no additional layers of tax when they get interest, dividends, or capital gains.

If the ideal policy is not possible, the goal should be the lowest-possible rates on productive behavior. And if such taxes have to exist, it makes sense to tax actual returns rather that assumed returns.

P.S. Some tax rates in the Netherlands are far too high.

P.S.S. Notwithstanding punitive income taxes, the Netherlands is a reasonably sensible nation by European standards. For instance, it has private Social Security and school choice.

My Gazette: Islam and Western Cultural Suicide, Netherlands

By Rich Kozlovich

The Netherlands has a demographic problem.  Ethnic Europeans aren't breeding enough to replenish their population, and Muslim immigrants are breeding too much.  It's been claimed they're demographic is already passed the point of no return.   It will be interesting to see how Greet Wilders as Prime Minister deals with this.  Make no mistake, all of Europe is in trouble. 

Netherlands: Islamic Schools Ban Muslim Children From Befriending Jews and Christians, Teach Non-Believers Should Be Killed  - Amy Mek January 2, 2024 - The impact of these violent and dangerous Islamic teachings is not confined to the walls of these schools. It spills over into society, contributing to a troubling rise in Islamic-driven antisemitic and anti-Christian incidents and threats against public figures critical of Islam. In a concerning report from 2019, primarily overlooked by Western media, investigations by Nieuwsuur and NRC Handelsblad have brought to light a disturbing trend in Islamic “schools” across the Netherlands. This report unveils a scenario where young Muslim minds are being steeped in Islamic doctrines of violence, hate, and intolerance, deceptively presented to Westerners under the guise of “peaceful” religious education. A World Apart: The Rise of Salafism in Dutch Education

My Gazette: Greet Wilders, December 6, 2023

By Rich Kozlovich

I save an inordinate number of articles dealing with every issue facing humanity.  I save them with the intention to use them in my own commentaries as source material.  But, after a while my draft files get really big and while I still want to have that materiel for reference, I have to purge those files.  So, I've decided to start a weekly series of Gazettes.  I will be publishing a "Gazette" dealing with each issue regularly, and I will insert "My Take " along the way.  Draft file purged, material saved. 

Warming: Some of these draft articles go aways back, and while that may be tiresome, it will also lay out a historical pattern.  

Let's start here:

Geert Wilders' Electoral Earthquake: Exclusive Insights with Eva Vlaardingerbroek on the Political Road Ahead and the Globalist Obstacles (Interview) Amy Mek December 2, 2023 - In an exclusive interview with Dutch news reporter and attorney Eva Vlaardingerbroek, RAIR Foundation USA explores the intricacies surrounding Geert Wilders’ extraordinary electoral victory in the recent Dutch election. This analysis, conducted during Vlaardingerbroek’s visit to Ottawa, Canada, is part of a speaking tour that includes numerous European politicians and pundits. Trinity Productions, an Ottawa-based media and activist group, sponsored the tour. The interview sheds light on the evolving political landscape, potential coalition dynamics, and the nuanced negotiations that lie ahead amidst a backdrop of a massive left-wing coordinated effort to thwart Wilders’ political ascent and impede the influence of his Party for Freedom (PVV) party. This scrutiny unfolds against the broader context of attempts to disrupt the democratic choices made by Dutch voters.

Muslims marching against Geert Wilders conspicuously wave certain flags - November 28, 2023 Ostensibly, the migrants wanted tolerance and acceptance; in reality, they came for conquest. I don’t speak Arabic, so I can’t decipher what they’re saying, but the video below depicts a recent eruption of protest in the Netherlands after the election of Geert Wilders:..............What stands out to you? Well, the total absence of any Dutch flags, and the very conspicuous presence of Al Qaeda, Taliban, and ISIS flags—we don’t see them reaffirming their desire to be included as Dutch citizens that they claimed upon admission to the country, but their true nature is on display for all to see. They clearly didn’t come to the Netherlands to assimilate (but we already knew that), and they have no allegiance or loyalty to the country that welcomed them; they came to conquer, which is exactly why the people just voted in anti-migration Wilders...........

 

Geert Wilders takes the offensive in the war for Western Civilization November 27, 2023 It’s not just that the Dutch pushed back against leftism when they gave a stunning victory to Wilders’ party. It’s that Wilders himself is a warrior for Western values. It’s entirely possible that, given enough time, probable Dutch Prime Minister Geert Wilders will prove to be yet another ostensibly conservative politician who has feet of clay. We’ve certainly seen enough of that across the West, especially in America. However, Wilders is off to an awesome start because he’s been loudly defending both Israel and his country against Islamic depredations. Western Enlightenment ideas that have long governed America and the post-WWII West cannot exist simultaneously with Islam. Because Islam is the integration of politics and faith, it will not tolerate a system in which the government (1) cannot mandate faith or (2) must provide equal protection under the law for all, regardless of race, religion, sex, etc.............

 

Geert Wilders's victory in the Netherlands sends the oppressive greenie agenda off to the compost heap  - November 27, 2023 -  The greenie left learns the hard way that Dutch voters don't want to eat bugs and ride the bus. Geert Wilders, who won a blowout parliamentary race in the Netherlands last week, gaining 37 seats, is primarily viewed through the prism of his opposition to Islamist immigration, which has been creating problems in his home country. His victory was bad news for Hamas, the Taliban, ISIS, assorted Jihadis, and masses of would-be rapists, loafers, and crimigrants who view the Netherlands as a fine harvest. But there's another group that fared just as badly -- the greenie fanatics, who seek to create a "net zero emissions" society -- by any means necessary. That means an increasingly oppressive, coercive and extractive state. They are all in on shutting down and expropriating farms, and driving energy prices through the roof as well as putting the manacles on industry through draconian regulation..............

 

Game Changer — Geert Wilders’ Populist Anti-Mass Migration Party Surges to Top Place in Dutch General Election Poll - Geert Wilders, a staunch critic of Islam and the European Union, hailed a recent poll that put his anti-mass migration party tied for first place in next week’s general election as a “game changer”. Dutch voters will head to the polls on Wednesday for a general election that could be a major signifier of the future political landscape of the European Union. The election was triggered after the fall of the globalist government of Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who announced his resignation from Dutch politics earlier this year over a dispute on migration after over thirteen years in power. Polls have suggested the likely formation of a right-wing coalition government amid growing discontent in the country over mass migration................

 

Dutch Voters Come Out for Geert Wilders and an End to the Islamization of the Netherlands - By Daniel Greenfield • November 23, 2023 - Not all that long ago the media was hyping Dilan Yeşilgöz, a Turkish immigrant, as the first Turkish female prime minister of the Netherlands. The polls however proved to be very wrong. Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party more than doubled its number of parliamentary seats and defied the polls. Dutch voters have once again come out for an end to the Islamization of the Netherlands. In 2017, the Freedom Party won 25 seats and a coalition was assembled to bypass Wilders. It will be more difficult to do that now that the Freedom Party has become the largest party in parliament, but never underestimate the willingness of establishment parties to ally with the Left so that they never have to deliver on their promises. The polls proved to be very wrong.......

 

Netherlands Political Earthquake: Geert Wilders Emerges as the Election Winner - Dutch Reject Islam and Globalism - November 26, 2023 - The success of Geert Wilders’ party in the Netherlands hinges, in part, on its strategic approach towards Islam. Other states have implemented bans as a proactive measure to prevent Islamization. The resounding and unexpected victory of the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV) in last Wednesday’s elections has focused attention on its leader and founder, Geert Wilders. Everyone has examined the programs he could implement if he formed a coalition within the Parliament of The Hague. In addition to stopping mass immigration, mainly Muslims (220,000 entries in the Netherlands in 2022, ten times more than in 2002), organizing a referendum on the left-wing European Union exit, and ending all aid to Ukraine, the election winner announced in his manifesto that he would ban mosques, Muslim schools, and the distribution of the Quran...........This position towards Islam has been the foundation of his ideology since 2004 when he founded his political party. Marked by the assassination of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, a critic of Islam, by a Muslim in the same year, he believes that this radical and dangerous ideology has no place in the Netherlands. In a text signed by him and published by an Amsterdam newspaper in 2007, he refers to the Quran as a “fascist book” and calls for its distribution to be outlawed. This is a position he still holds today. If Geert Wilders is nicknamed the “Dutch Trump,” it is not only because of the spectacular blond hairstyle the two men have in common............

 

From the Netherlands, Geert Wilders' win draws a sour grapes response from the eurotrash -

November 24, 2023 By Monica Showalter  -- After decades of wokedom, self-satisfied establishmentarians in European capitals found themselves 'shocked' that populist/conservative Geert Wilders ran away with a big victory in the Netherlands. Sour grapes is more like it. But to get even more specific, it was a wake-up call. According to the Associated Press:.............

Wilders Wins Big By Bruce Bawer -  November 24, 2023 - And the Dutch elites weep. It’s about time. On November 22, seventeen years after its founding by Geert Wilders, the Party for Freedom (PVV) won a huge victory in the Dutch elections. With 23% of the vote, the PVV went from 17 to 37 seats in the 150-seat House of Representatives. The conservative British commentator Paul Joseph Watson called it “the biggest political earthquake in Europe since Brexit.” The lefties who’d shown up to follow the returns at the headquarters of other parties exhibited the same shock and grief that we saw in the faces of Hillary Clinton voters at the Javits Center on Election Night 2016....

With Geert Wilders winning in the Netherlands, Israel gains another ally ... and that's no coincidence - November 25, 2023 By Monica Showalter - For Israel, it had to be good news to learn that Geert Wilders, the supposedly wild and crazy Dutch version of Donald Trump, came in with a huge parliamentary victory in the Netherlands and now may become the country's next prime minister. That's because Wilders is a ferocious advocate and ally for Israel. Look at those details:.

 

Dutch Election Winner Geert Wilders Declares ‘Jordan Is Palestine!’  - . Joshua Klein 25 Nov 2023 -  The country of Jordan should be considered the true national homeland for the Palestinian people, according to Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders, who caused an uproar after making the declaration online. In a Saturday post on X, formerly Twitter, the right-wing firebrand who won this past week’s election in the Netherlands made the remarks, sharing a Politico article describing Arab states condemning his “push to relocate Palestinians to Jordan.”

 

Dutch Right-Wing Election Winner Geert Wilders Causes Uproar After Declaring ‘Jordan Is Palestine!’ -  Joshua Klein 25 Nov 2023 -  The country of Jordan should be considered the true national homeland for the Palestinian people, according to Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders, who caused an uproar after making the declaration online. In a Saturday post on X, formerly Twitter, the right-wing firebrand who won this past week’s election in the Netherlands made the remarks, sharing a Politico article describing Arab states condemning his “push to relocate Palestinians to Jordan.”.............

Islam, Israel, and The Canary in the Coal Mine

Let's be clear. We have skin in this game!

By Rich Kozlovich

I'm going to hazard to guess most aren't aware about the canary in the coal mine story.  In days gone by, before they properly ventilated mines, dangerous gases such as carbon monoxide would build up to dangerous levels.  Canaries were more sensitive to those gases and when they died, the miners knew there was trouble and would leave the tunnels quickly.  

This article by Clarice Feldman on November 19, 2023, So -- It Wasn’t the Sidewalk After All, is a canary in the coal mine warning saying:

This week the Ventura County Sheriff arrested Professor Loay Abdelfattah Alnaji in the death of Paul Kessler, a 69 year-old man who had been standing on the sidewalk peacefully supporting Israel. Alnaji, who bashed Kessler with a megaphone, was charged with involuntary manslaughter and battery causing serious bodily injury and both these charges contain special allegations that Alnaji “personally inflicted great bodily injury.” 

This comes as no surprise to most of us who get their news online but it must have been news to those who read headers which said he died after falling and hitting his head on the sidewalk. Even after no charges were brought against the sidewalk, CNN’s header read “arrest made in death of Jewish protestor who fell and hit his head.” (CNN has now stealthily edited the header.) 

The media effort to downplay anti-Semitism, like its coverage of the Israeli response to the butchery by Hamas, doesn’t seem fixable. It’s certainly bias, but stupidity also plays a part, as is demonstrated by their claims that they didn’t know the Gaza stringers were Hamas or the scenes of injured civilians in Gaza were Pallywood. 

Reporters who post on social media regularly display their total ignorance. This week it was the New York Times opinion columnist Elizabeth Spiers, who learned for the first time that Gaza’s Health Ministry -- like every office in Gaza -- is Hamas. 

(The ignorance must be endemic to the western press, which has been touting Hamas casualty figures for Gaza -- roughly a bazillion civilians and no Hamas terrorists from the moment Israel entered Gaza.)

I think American Thinker is the best all news commentary website in America, and has what I would call a "family of commentators" who regularly participate in discussions on the articles appearing there.  There are some cave dwelling trolls, true, but unlike so many sites, I find most of those who comment there are intelligent and well informed. 

Roy Weintraub is one of them, and I thought his comment was so profound I decided to record it:

Israel is the canary in the coal mine. Hamas is a direct representation of all that ails the West and the USA, in particular. Israel's war has brought the cockroaches out in the open.

First, some historical perspective. Communism/Socialism visited upon the US about the same time as it did in Czarist Russia. By the twenties to mid-thirties, it reached a high point of acceptance in the US. Many went to the Soviet Union to relish the beauty of Stalin's governance and came back disillusioned. Meantime, Communists infiltrated our govt., yes, Joe McCarthy was right. FDR embraced socialist ideas as solutions to the Depression. IMO and others, they lengthened it in the US.

Second, came the cultural acceptance in the 60's. Free love, the Vietnam War, SDS moved some youths to believe that the Soviets were imperfect, that the US could do Communism better. These people became the teachers and parents of teachers indoctrinating our children.

Now, we have the various victims(?), Antifa, BLM, etc. that receive empathy, attention, and support via social media, MSM, and the govt. These groups as a whole are the equivalent of the Red Guard. Their idolizing of Bin Laden is an update from Che Guevara. We must face the reality that Communism is the umbrella that all these victims(?), rights(?) groups, anti-American zombies are part of, and there are those that see this as a means for the overthrow of our Republic.

*(?) Are they really victims and do they really have specific rights.

The media is full of what Stalin called "useful idiots", filled with corrupt lazy liars, mouthing whatever leftist promoting meme that's the theme of the moment, and invariably, they're wrong.   The sooner they go out of business the better off the world will be.  

What the media is hiding over what's happening in Israel is what's happening in some form or another all over the world.   Israel are the international political canary the coal mine.  Muslim invasion via what's being called immigration jihad breeds violence.  Violence poeple of Europe hadn't seen in their lifetime, and Sweden is one of those nations.  Muslims are out breeding the local ethnic populations of the world, and some nations are now, at current rates of growth, are past the point of no return demographically.  

Muslims are never going to integrate, ever, Islam is about taking, not giving, and that's across the board.  There's a reason Arab nations refuse to accept Arabs who claim to be Palestinians.  They know better. 

As the Left rages against Israel, hurling antisemitic slurs and chanting for more Jews to die, some might want to consider why the civilians have nowhere to go. Okay, maybe these folks do know but don’t care, but liberals are historically illiterate, so who knows? It goes beyond geography. The Palestinians bring trouble and have a long, sordid history of fomenting mayhem and terrorism in other Arab nations. ........

When the demographic of a nation has a Muslim population over ten percent they start making demands.  Everyone must bend to their will and institute sharia law for everyone, and if they don't get their way, violence erupts, and the governments in Europe bend, grovel, and criminalize any speech or activity in opposition to that insanity.  And they're demanding Israel do the same insisting on solutions that have been abject failures since the beginning of modern Israel.  

Well, unless Europe makes some drastic changes and forces all these Muslims out, it's doomed, socially, economically, demographically, and philosophically.  Israel has no intention of following them down that drain, and now even the leftist nutrolls of Israel realize they've facing an extential crisis they must win, or cease to exist.

Having said all that, it appears some Europeans are taking note, and taking action.   In this article, Geert Wilders's victory in the Netherlands sends the oppressive greenie agenda off to the compost heap, Monica Showalter outlines what his election will do to the insane and destrutive green agenda the left has pushed in Europe, saying maybe Wilder's election was about the green agenda and not the Muslim invasion that's definitely gong to destroy Holland.  

While I think all that's great, I don't think that's really why the Dutch elected him.  The fact is, Greet Wilder has been speaking out for years about the disaster of Muslim immigration, even having to defend himself in their courts for saying what is blatant truth about Islam, and the disaster all that immigration is causing that will destroy Europe. 

• A Sharia Victory in the Netherlands
• Video: Geert Wilders' Stands in Solidarity with Tommy Robinson 
• Video: Geert Wilders on Europe's Suicide in the Face of Islam
• Wilders: Let Us Raise a Flag of Truth and Liberation

As Daniel Greenfield notes:  Dutch Voters Come Out for Geert Wilders and an End to the Islamization of the Netherlands.  

That's what he's known for, not his anti-green agenda.  That's merely a plus.  And I think we may be seeing more resistance, as in Ireland, where rioting has broke out over the vile stabbing of "two adults and three children [who] were wounded in the stabbing attack near an aftercare center in Dublin on Thursday. A 5-year-old girl was in critical condition and a woman was in serious condition as of Friday".   All done by an Algerian immigrant.   Open and uncontrolled immigration is an invitation to national dissolution, no matter where they come from, and in a nation like Ireland with a population of a little over five million poeple, it wouldn't take long to overwhelm their culture.  

Why is that so hard to get?

Monaco, Netherlands, and Tax Servitude

June 24, 2023 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

Libertarians often make the claim that taxation is a form of robbery, and some of them (especially the anarcho-capitalists) even assert that it is a form of slavery.

Since I’m an economist, I stick to less flamboyant arguments about the adverse impact of high marginal tax rates and double taxation.

But, based on a controversy in the Netherlands, maybe the more radical libertarians have a point.

There are some people in that country who think a race car driver who left the Netherlands and now lives in Monaco has an obligation to surrender half his income to the Dutch government.

Here are some excerpts from a report published by a sports website.

 

Max Verstappen, ever since he turned 18 has been living in Monaco which is known to be a tax haven. Essentially, Max Verstappen has not paid any tax whatsoever to the Dutch government for his earnings which are estimated to be €200 million… a LinkedIn post by Rutger Bregman…accused Max Verstappen of stealing from his own country. In the post, he commented “People like Verstappen don’t work for their country. They only work for themselves.” …There is a solution to the accusation raised by Rutger. …Wouter Leenders and Vinzenz Zieseme…pointed out that the Dutch government do what the French government does to its uber-rich. The French Government…taxes French individuals living in Monaco since 1963. The problem with this arrangement is that there are 15 other Tax Havens in Europe that would happily favour the high-paid athletes.

Notice that Mr. Bregman is asserting that Verstappen has an obligation to work for somebody other than himself. Is that not – at least in part – the definition of slavery?

There’s actually a serious tax issue in this controversy. Bregman, Leenders, and Zieseme presumably think that the Netherlands should have a “worldwide” tax system, which means the Dutch government would tax people like Verstappen even if they permanently reside someplace else.

There is a major country that uses that approach, and I’m embarrassed to admit it’s the United States.

Fortunately, I don’t think Europe will copy that mistake.

P.S. Monaco is a great refuge for successful people. But, as noted the excerpt above, not if you’re French (and you can read the history of that by clicking here). Successful French people have to move to places such as Belgium (no capital gains tax) or Switzerland (low overall taxes).

Health minister wants to be able to KILL children up to age 12!

Proposal made to 'alleviate' suffering of those with serious illnesses

 

By WND News Services July 10, 2022\

 

Dutch health minister Ernst Kuipers has introduced a proposal to parliament that would allow euthanasia for young children aged one through 12. The Netherlands already boasts some of the most relaxed euthanasia laws in the world, including allowing death for children who are over the age of 12, and for babies under age one who are thought to be terminally ill............ While these stipulations are meant to make the euthanasia of young children appear like a carefully-planned act of mercy, there is no instance in which it is ethical to kill a child — even if that child is suffering. Young children are incapable of giving free consent to their own deaths..............To Read More.....

Netherlands rocked by worst civil unrest in years as anti-lockdow

By Nelson Oliveira New York Daily News |Jan 26, 2021

More than 180 people were arrested Monday during the third night of violence in the Netherlands, where rioters appear to have hijacked an anti-lockdown protest to cause destruction across the country.

The civil unrest began over the weekend in response to the Dutch government’s strict measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, which includes a newly imposed curfew between 9 p.m. and 4:30 a.m. But the seemingly peaceful demonstrations turned into chaos as groups of mostly teenagers began organizing on social media to attack public and private properties in different parts of the country.

Images shared on social media showed rioters looting stores, smashing windows, clashing with police, setting vehicles on fire and vandalizing buildings.

“These people are shameless thieves, I cannot say otherwise,” said Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb, whose city had some of the worst riots Monday, according to The Guardian. ...........To Read More....

 

Netherland Government Leaders Join the UN In Harassing Pastoral Farmers

By Judi McLeod

Even as they plough their fields, farmers whose work feeds cities, are being ploughed out of business by the United Nation’s destructive-to-humanity Agenda 21/30.

The most frightening thing about this worrisome turn of events is that most farmers don’t even know that their demise by the world’s biggest bureaucracy is already well underway.

In fact, were it not for an email from Lt. Robert K. Powell Jr. (Ret) in Oregon, Canada Free Press (CFP) may never have come across it this stunning news:

“Lt. Robert Powell here—The media is not noting a very serious Agenda 21 event in the Netherlands”.

One of the most massive farmers’ protest in history took place in the Netherlands yesterday, but the local and international media all but ignored it.

 

Because it’s deliberately heralded as “voluntary”, most people do not even know what Agenda 21 is.

Yet, The UN’s Agenda 21 is being incrementally imposed worldwide in a worldwide Climate Change/Global Warming scam, promoted on the QT by a myriad of towns, cities and entire countries.

Wrapped in typical UN bureau-speak, Agenda 21, birthed in 1992, moves forward by stealth.......To Read More....

Unreal: 25% of all deaths in Netherlands by forms of euthanasia and suicide

Ed Morrissey January 21, 2019

When the Netherlands embraced euthanasia, along with other European countries, it claimed that it allowed for compassionate ends to lives already doomed to a suffering end. Critics warned that it would not only go far beyond the supposedly limited scope of assisted suicides, it would also create a culture of death in which suicide for any reason would become socially acceptable and perhaps even expected. The Guardian did an in-depth look at the Netherlands death statistics in 2017, ten years after the definition of "unbearable suffering" was made more ambiguous, and found that " more than a quarter "of all deaths in the country were either suicides, assisted suicides, or "terminal sedation."

Has Euthanasia Gone Too Far? asked the Guardian. The clear answer is a resounding yes, emphasis mine:.........To Read More.....

A Sharia Victory in the Netherlands

November 24, 2018 By Daniel A. Brubaker

This November was meant to be the month for MP Geert Wilders’ second “Draw Muhammad” contest, but Islamic law won a de facto victory over Dutch law mere weeks ago as Wilders announced the contest’s cancellation. When -- among many other threats similar attacks -- a 19-year-old Afghan stabbed two American tourists in Amsterdam, citing the planned contest as motive, Wilders canceled the event out of concern about further violence.

The Islamists had made their point: “Having the law on your side makes no difference. Do what we want, or somebody is going to get hurt.”

Such antics by Islamist Muslims are not new to Wilders and other speech and conscience advocates. In retribution for his firm and outspoken stance on this subject, he has “spent 15 years living in safe houses and escorted by a security detail due to constant death threats.” These are the tactics, of course, of any common mafia.

In securing Wilders’ retreat, the terrorists established Sharia’s authority for now in the Netherlands on the issue of speech......... What is going on, in other words, are tests of national sovereignty, a battle of civilizations. In this most recent round, I regret to report, the winner was not Western civilization, but rather the Islamist mob......... To Read more

Netherlands 25 Percent Nonwhite, Will Become Majority Third World Within One Generation

The New Observer, September 28, 2018

According to the official Dutch census bureau, the total number of residents of the Netherlands stands at 17,081,507, of which 13,218,754 have a “Dutch background,” to use the official terminology.

Of these “immigrant background” population, the Dutch census bureau claims that 2,173,723 have a “non-western” background, made up of 391,088 Moroccans, 153,469 Antillean and Arubans, 349.978 Surinamese, 400,367 Turks, and 878,821 “assorted not-Westerners.”............ These figures mean that the Netherlands is due to become a majority nonwhite country within the next generation, or 30 years, thanks to the race-denying liberal immigration policies pursued by that country’s governments for the last five decades.........To Read More....

My Take - Race isn't really the important issue here.  It's religion.  The Dutch population overall, as most of Europeans, have no religion they actually practice or believe in.  But a large segment of these immigrants do, and they take their religion very seriously. And that religion is antithetical to all other religions or social paradigms.  Islam!

A Green Love Affair to Remember!

By Rich Kozlovich

The Netherlands alternative energy scheme using windmills was touted to the world as a great success story, and an example to the rest of the world. Yet time always tells the real tale. They built their first sea-based wind turbines in 2006 believing this was their great hope to cut carbon emissions and generate much needed electricity. But the Dutch have finally fallen out of love with their windmills. Why?

The article linked above goes on to say:

“36 turbines -- each one the height of a 30-storey building -- produce enough electricity to meet the needs of more than 100,000 households each year. But five years later the green future looks a long way off. Faced with the need to cut its budget deficit, the Dutch government says offshore wind power is too expensive and that it cannot afford to subsidize the entire cost of 18 cents per kilowatt hour -- some 4.5 billion euros last year.”

Now the same reality that faces the Dutch that everyone else has had to face that has tried this foolish system finally comes to the fore.  

“Arguments over the high cost and maintenance of sea-based turbines, as well as complaints from residents about unsightly land-based models, have brought the Dutch to an impasse. Offshore wind farms produce more electricity than onshore ones but it costs twice as much as onshore wind power due to the higher cost of materials, more expensive drilling methods, and more complex maintenance”

One person was quoted as saying:

"People don't want big wind turbines in their backyards," said Kasper Wallet, an energy consultant. "They think it will impact the value of their property." 

The only reason they say this is because they know that all this alternative energy and carbon emissions claptrap isn't necessary...and expensive. If they really thought that they were going to run out of electricity without wind turbines or the world was facing disaster due to carbon emissions they wouldn't utter a word against this. They now know he truth and are acting on it.

In short, if they wish to continue down this road they will pay dearly out of their pockets. Low cost energy is the key to successful economies, and I think they are finally getting it, especially since all this claptrap about emissions is going to be thrown out the window. Alternative energy cannot survive without massive tax breaks and/or subsidies.

The driving force for alternative energy during the Carter years was the oil embargo from OPEC and fear of using up all the traditional sources such as oil, coal and natural gas. Well, that program was a big failure, but since no one tried it before they could at least claim ignorance. But now we know it was a failure and yet we continue to pursue that failed policy. As I said, at least Carter could reasonably claim ignorance…..what is everyone’s excuse now?

Now the driving force for alternative energy was the fear of lost “fossil” fuels and global warming. Two things have occurred since this stupidity was once again taken up. One, we know we have enough oil, natural gas and coal to last for another 200 years. Two, we also know that global warming stopped ten years ago and the warming that did take place was part of a natural process that ended sooner than I would have liked. During years past the warming periods made life much better for every living thing on the planet, and it was a lot warmer than it is now. Also….none of the disasters they are predicting for today occurred then, and they wouldn’t have occurred now.

So that brings us to the point. There is no need for these expensive alternative energy programs that are at best unreliable, and so unreliable that traditional power plants have to be built and maintained in order to supply power when these stupid green sources fail to work, such as the sun stops shining in the winter and the wind stops blowing in the summer. In order to have ‘alternative’ energy we have to pay for energy we aren’t using in order to pay for energy we don’t need. How stupid can we get?

So what did they base their predictions on? It certainly wasn’t science….you know…..the stuff you can observe and prove, because the years of past warming periods didn’t produce those disasters. Therefore they must have based their scaremongering predictions on philosophy; green philosophy! The religious recognize this as a definition of “faith”. And among scientists too…. amazing ….don’t you think? Of course the 'faith' exercised among these scaremongering scientists is much like the faith of the "rice Christians" of China who converted to avoid starvation, and as long as the rice kept coming they remained "Christians". Scientists are "grant chasing greenies". As long as government grant money keeps pouring in they will provide all the green faith they want.

Only, it isn’t really faith in the Biblical sense. According to the apostle Paul, faith is based on past history. In other words; there is enough evidence of past predictions coming true that one could reasonably expect future predictions to come true also. Green faith is voodoo, not to mention stupid. Because everything they predict and everything they put into place is anti-humanity. If they already haven’t done so, the green movement will end up killing more people than did all the socialist monsters of the 20th century, such as Hitler, Stalin and Mao. 

That doesn’t even include all the little socialist monsters like Pot Pol. For clarification; communism is the left wing of socialism and fascism is the right wing. But both are central planning systems that impose the idea on people that the state is all. Just like the green movement, both green and socialism are alternative religions. And just as big a failure as alternative energy and the Dutch are finally catching on.

We need to get this also. Any successes in alternative energy are like any successes in socialism. They are temporary aberrations that time will expose and fix.


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