Unlike the US House of Representatives or the Senate, where invariably one party secures a ruling majority, multiple German parties must form a coalition to reach the required 50%+1 majority threshold. Currently, the Green Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the Free Democratic Party comprise this coalition. The latest polls show all these parties polling far below their 2021 election results while the more right-leaning parties, such as the Christian Democratic Union and the Alternative for Germany, are surging in popularity.

The recent economic slowdown has resulted in widespread political discontent, and the core of the slowdown has been disastrous energy policy. According to the most recent data published by the German Federal Statistical Office, consumers have been paying an average of 46 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity. For comparison, the average price of electricity in the United States during December was just under 13 cents per kWh. Cost disparities can also be seen in the price of gasoline. At the fuel pump, German consumers pay an average price of $7.23 per gallon, compared to $3.33 in America.

The tipping point came in February, when the famous family-owned dishwasher manufacturer Miele announced that it would cut thousands of jobs and move production to Poland. Luxury car manufacturer Porsche initially planned on building a new car battery manufacturing plant domestically and then switched gears by announcing plans to open the proposed plant in America. Both the lack of future investment and deindustrialization create a snowball effect, worsening the situation.

The defense establishment is mainly concerned with copycat attacks potentially inspired by each successful attack and expends large resources to detect and monitor prominent instigators online, and dozens have already been arrested since October 7. The relatively swift neutralization of terrorists after attacks also acts as a deterrent. Since October 7, security forces and the IDF's Central Command in Jerusalem have been on high alert and expect more attacks in Jerusalem, as well as across the West Bank.

Without the red heifer ashes, priests and Levites currently in training with the Temple Institute are disqualified from serving in a future rebuilt Temple. Furthermore, with all the bloodshed on the Temple Mount down through the centuries, the Mount itself must be cleansed before the Temple can be built.

The problem is that finding an unblemished red heifer is extremely rare. In recent years, Temple activists have had their efforts end in frustration time and again. Potential red heifer candidates have been located with great excitement, only to end up later developing white hairs or getting otherwise disqualified before they reach the required age to be sacrificed. It was in this context that Byron Stinson, a Christian rancher from Texas, baffled Rabbis in 2022 as he invited them to his ranch to inspect what turned out to be five unblemished red heifers.

What happened next sounds almost like it was taken from a Hollywood movie script as the heifers were airlifted to Israel at around 1 year old (how do you even go about flying cows to the Holy Land?). Being greeted at the airport with a special ceremony officiated by Rabbis, the heifers were then taken out of the public eye to continue being quietly and meticulously groomed for the sacrifice.

Although one of the five was disqualified last year due to the emergence of a few white hairs, the remaining four remain on track to be eligible to be sacrificed this year. According to All Israel News, Temple Institute Rabbis hope to perform this ceremony prior to Passover this year while other sources claim it will happen sometime between Passover and Pentecost.

However, the radical Islamic world understands the significance of the arrival of the red heifers and are incensed by their presence. It was no co-incidence that Hamas called its infamous and deadly October 7 terror attack "Operation Al Aqsa Flood". Speaking at the 100 day mark of the current war with Israel, Abu Obeida, a military spokesman for Hamas, said that the aggression against "our path and Al-Aqsa" reached its peak with the "bringing of red cows."

Mr Netanyahu responded at the time by saying that the Turkish president should be the last person to lecture Israel. 'Erdogan, who commits genocide against the Kurds, who holds a world record for imprisoning journalists who oppose his rule, is the last person who can preach morality to us.'

“In doing so, Europe should strive to develop and manufacture the next generation of battle-winning operational capabilities,” she said. The Commission president’s remarks came after the EU’s executive body presented its strategy for improving the bloc’s defense industry on Tuesday. The document calls, among other things, for the streamlining of arms procurement among member states and reducing dependence on the US defense industry.

While lower-income Americans have experienced the greatest breakdown in marriage, even those who are well-off and college-educated are getting married at later ages. The average age of those entering marriage now is 30 for men and 28 for women. And those who marry are having fewer children or no children because of career considerations that push back the age of childbearing.

The bottom line is that even if people are getting married, they are not having children or as many children. Meanwhile, the number of never-marrieds continues to rise. The decreasing marriage rate has led to a spike in the percentage of people living alone. The US Census Bureau reported in 2020 that 27.6 percent of all US occupied households consisted of only one person. In 1950, that percentage was just 9.3 percent. Nearly 46.4 percent of all adults are now reported to be single.

In many cases, as they enter their 40s, they increasingly learn the words of Solomon from Ecclesiastes 1:2 are sadly true: “Everything is meaningless.” Or, as former President Ronald Reagan reminded us in 1986, “Some have suggested that in today’s world, the family has somehow become less important. Well, I can’t help thinking just the opposite: that when so much around is whispering the little lie that we should live only for the moment and for ourselves, it’s more important than ever to affirm an older and more lasting set of values … the family remains the fundamental unit of American life.”

If our nation is to return putting selflessness over selfishness and long-term happiness over short-term “experiences,” it would be prudent to remind ourselves of the words from these two wise men and realize that marriage and family — and not money and career — are true keys to a fulfilling life.

New data has suggested the problem is also transferring to secondaries, with 4,000 fewer children applying to London secondary schools this year – a fall expected to be mirrored nationally. Secondary pupil numbers across the country are forecast by the Department for Education to fall from 2025 onwards, reaching 98,000 fewer by 2030 – a three per cent drop which is equivalent to 3,266 classes or 92 schools.

Schools receive on average about £7,000 for each child on their register, so if numbers drop too far it becomes financially unviable. Official figures from the Office for National Statistics showed fertility rates fell to 1.49 children per woman in 2022. That is well below the rate of 2.1 needed to maintain a steady population without significant immigration.

Yet, there is also movement toward returning to the regular use of gold, and silver as well, as money inside America. In January, I wrote about a proposition, to be voted on in the Texas Super Tuesday Republican primary, that supports employing the Texas Bullion Depository, which began operations in 2018, to advance use of gold and silver as legal tender.

I mentioned then some reasons why people in Texas and elsewhere in America may be keen on returning to the use of gold and silver as money, writing that an affirmative vote on the proposition “could prove to be an important step toward enabling people to escape the inflation tax that comes with fiat money and the liberty destruction that a central bank digital currency would bring.” You see, dominance of the US dollar can be a threat to Americans in addition to foreigners.

There is some local press interest in Germany about the destruction of part of the forest that covers a 200 square kilometre area. Nevertheless, the mainstream media generally keep well away from covering environmental destruction when the Greens are doing it in the claimed cause of saving the planet.

Pierre Gosselin, who runs the German-based science site No Tricks Zone, has been covering the outrage felt in a number of German quarters at the plans to destroy some of the Reinhardswald forest in the interest of inferior green technology. He feels the affair shows what an inefficient and costly scam green energy is.

“It’s not cost-free, it’s full of corrupt and unresponsive politicians who no longer care about democracy, and it certainly doesn’t make the environment better. It’s a nasty juggernaut of waste, fraud, corruption and ecological degradation – with dead birds, turbine vibration sickness, strobe dizziness and landscape pollution,” he adds.

‘Why are a bunch of government websites down at this moment in time? It seems like everyone is distracted by the state of the union so there’s a bunch of backdoor shady stuff going on right now,’ said Twitter user John Winters. The government website crash is the latest in a recent slew of social media and communications outages.

On Wednesday, the networking platform LinkedIn crashed with thousands of users seeing an error message on the site. The error message appeared around 9 pm, according to outrage tracking service Down Detector. LinkedIn announced it is ‘back up and running’ around an hour later and apologized for the interruption. Facebook, Messenger and Instagram were offline for 1.5 hours on Tuesday throughout the US, the UK, parts of Europe, China, Australia and Mexico.

As John Ellis, professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Cruz, notes, “Higher education by and for political radicals was foreseen and banned by the American Association of University Professors, which in a celebrated 1915 policy statement warned teachers ‘against taking unfair advantage of the student’s immaturity by indoctrinating him with the teacher’s own opinions.’

Looking beyond the indoctrination factor, is a college degree really important? No. For many, it makes no difference whatsoever. In fact, over 52% of recent four-year college graduates are underemployed a year after graduation, according to a new report from the Strada Institute for the Future of Work and the Burning Glass Institute. A decade after graduation, 45% of them still don’t hold a job that requires a four-year degree.

It’s beyond time to rethink college. Unless a student is targeting a profession that absolutely requires a college degree, it would be better for them, their parents, and beleaguered taxpayers to avoid it completely. You may be deprived of lessons on evil Jews or the joys of kinky sex, but you can learn about things that will enrich your life and, at the same time, not be a burden to society.