VATICAN - The Catholic Church is facing its most serious crisis in 500 years. In these last few months, a new wave of clerical sexual abuse revelations left the world in shock. From Australia to Chile to Germany to the United States, horrifying reports revealed thousands of cases of child molestation by members of the clergy.

USA - Talk radio star and New York Times bestselling author Michael Savage has a prescient warning for America: Mass hysteria has overtaken rational political discourse and escalated to a crescendo following the election of Donald Trump. If we don’t learn from past mistakes, Savage argues, the current “collective derangement” which, he says, is being used by power-hungry actors and channeled into “orchestrated mass hysteria,” will lead the country to a very dark future. “We are living in very dangerous times because the left has been motivated to become violent. And they are being paid to be violent.” Savage predicted that the left’s histrionics could potentially backfire and result in an even more right-wing revolution. “If they keep this up, more and more people on the independent middle will demand law and order,” he said.

USA - Now that Brett Kavanaugh has officially been confirmed, it is a good time to reflect upon where we are at as a nation.  And where we are at is a nation that is rapidly moving toward a state of civil war.  At one time we were a nation that was united by shared values, a shared purpose and a shared destiny, but now all of that has been replaced by anger, frustration, bitterness, strife and discord.  The left hates the right and vice versa, and both sides are becoming increasingly radicalized.  And without a doubt we are in a life or death battle for the future of America.  Eventually one side or the other will emerge victorious, and their ideology will become dominant in this country.

USA - Of all the issues dividing Europe and the Trump administration, Iran has become the sharpest, with the Europeans actively working against United States policy, placing them in league with Russia, China and Iran. Since earlier this year, when it pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal that was a centerpiece of former President Barack Obama’s diplomacy, the Trump administration has pressed ahead with punishing sanctions against Tehran.

CHINA - China holds more than a trillion dollars in United States debt, and an escalating trade war could tempt it to wield that debt in a way that has long been unthinkable. It is often called the nuclear option. Critics who dismiss the possibility of China trying to upend the United States Treasury market say that China’s own economy is too fragile to risk doing anything that would cause instability. Supporters of the Trump administration’s tough stance on tariffs with China take actions like that as a sign that the United States holds the negotiating leverage. And it remains an open question whether China could inflict real damage by selling Treasuries. But brinkmanship does not breed rational thought. The escalation of hostilities, even economic ones, raises both stakes and tempers alike, which is a dangerous combination. And in this case, there is no proving ground. There is no predictable math, no scale model.

USA - A report from the US Government Accountability Office paints a grim picture of American military security – or the lack thereof. A host of American weapons can easily be hacked, either due to tech issues or human incompetence. The GAO report draws on 30 years of Department of Defense data and interviews with dozens of military officials to reveal a broad range of cybersecurity flaws in the world’s most high-tech military apparatus.

ITALY - Italy is on the brink of a dangerous banking crisis as the red-blooded showdown between Brussels and Rome pushes the country’s borrowing costs to a five-year high.  Yields on Italy’s 10-year debt spiked to 3.62 percent after the Lega strongman and vice-premier, Matteo Salvini, vowed to sweep away the existing European order. He called Jean-Claude Juncker and his Commission aides "enemies of Europe barricaded inside their Brussels bunker.” The furious outburst followed the leak of a stern letter from the Commission rejecting the deficit spending plans of the insurgent Lega-Five Star government, and more or less ordering Rome to go back to the drawing board.

UK - Mental health disorders are on the rise in every country in the world and could cost the global economy up to $16 trillion between 2010 and 2030 if a collective failure to respond is not addressed, according to an expert report on Tuesday. The “Lancet Commission” report by 28 global specialists in psychiatry, public health and neuroscience, as well as mental health patients and advocacy groups, said the growing crisis could cause lasting harm to people, communities and economies worldwide. “The situation is extremely bleak,” Patel, a professor at Harvard Medical School in the United States, told reporters. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around 300 million people worldwide have depression and 50 million have dementia. Schizophrenia is estimated to affect 23 million people, and bipolar disorder around 60 million.

USA - Did you know "jazz hands" are slowly replacing clapping? No, really: Clapping has been banned at a leading university in the UK "to avoid triggering anxiety" for students. Lest you think this practice doesn't exist in the US, I can personally vouch that it does. When I spoke at Bard College in New York last year, the students there did this exact thing with their hands whenever one of their classmates would challenge me and they wanted to show their support. I couldn't figure out what was going on until about halfway through the talk when I just flat-out asked the students,"What on earth are you all doing?" (I had kind of figured it out by then, but I wanted to hear them explain it.)

USA - America's War With Afghanistan Enters 18th Year. On October 7, 2001, less than a month after the September 11 terror attacks, US warplanes bombed targets in Afghanistan in what would be the opening offensive of Operation Enduring Freedom, the effort to drive the Taliban and al-Qaida from the country and install a democratic government.  CIA operatives and US special forces teamed with the mostly-Tajik Northern Alliance to take Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif and other cities under an air umbrella that was provided primarily by the Navy and used Joint Direct Attack Munitions to devastating effect.  Depending on who is doing the counting and how it is done, the estimates for the costs of the war for the US since 2001 have generally exceeded $1 trillion. The Pentagon estimates the US will spend at least $45 billion on the war effort this year.

GERMANY - German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen says the structures for a European Defence Union have been “activated”, and also hopes to develop a system that tells Europeans when to use their “forces”. Ursula von der Leyen claimed a legal framework now exists for a European Defence Union. The German Defence Minister also discussed developing a structure that tells Europeans when to use their “forces”. Speaking on Uncut with Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Ms von der Leyen declared: “The structures that have been ‘sleeping’ for a long time inside the Treaty of Lisbon - now we have activated them. That means we now have a legal framework for a European Defence Union, we have a joint planning process, so that as Europeans we can also develop a structure that tells us when we are going to use our forces.”

USA - Is Ron Paul about to be proven right once again? Even though he has retired from politics, Ron Paul is still speaking out about the most important issues of the day. And what he recently told CNBC is extremely ominous. The following comes from a CNBC article entitled “Ron Paul: US is barreling towards a stock market drop of 50% or more, and there’s no way to prevent it”…

USA - The eight richest persons in the world collectively own about $426 billion. That is an average of about $53.25 billion each. You’re certain to know some of the guys in the most exclusive club in the world – the rich list rock stars. Others shun the limelight, preferring wealth without fame.

USA - Leftists openly plot mass executions of conservatives as Democrats release home addresses of Republican Senators. As Leftists continue to lose political power in America due to elections (President Trump) and Supreme Court nominations (Brett Kavanaugh), their activists are becoming more militant and extremist.

USA - We’ve all heard the statistics about accidental gun deaths in the US. Many of them are overblown, of course, but even one death is too many. However, when these statistics are put in perspective by comparing them to other types of accidental death, it’s even more tragic; medical malpractice kills 500 times more Americans than accidental gun deaths do! Doesn’t that mean there should be 500 times more calls for doctor control than gun control? The shocking data on malpractice deaths is quite solid. It was taken from an eight-year study from the reputable Johns Hopkins University, who found that there are at least 250,000 deaths due to malpractice in America each year.