RUTHFULLY YOURS

The surge in Germany’s Muslim population — propelled by a wave of migration unprecedented since the Second World War — represents a demographic shift of epic proportions, one that critics of the country’s open-door immigration policy warn will change the face of Germany forever.

“There are 20 million refugees waiting at the doorstep of Europe.” — Johannes Hahn, EU Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations.

According to Aiman Mazyek, head of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, attendance at many mosques has doubled in the past month alone.

A large number (40%) are from countries in the Balkans, including Albania and Kosovo. This implies that nearly half of those arriving in Germany are economic migrants, not refugees fleeing war zones. — Thomas De Maizière, German Interior Minister.

Muslim men residing in Germany routinely take advantage of the social welfare system by bringing two, three or four women from across the Muslim world to Germany, and then marrying them in the presence of an imam. Once in Germany the women request social welfare benefits, including the cost of a separate home for themselves and for their children, on the claim of being a “single parent with children.” — From an exposé broadcast by RTL television.

The administration doesn’t want states to ‘interfere’ with its nuclear deal with Tehran.

President Obama’s executive agreement with Iran is enormously controversial for good reason. Negotiated in coordination with Russia, China, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, the deal welcomes Iran as a participant in the world community conditioned only on marginal changes to its nuclear program. It effectively allows Iran to maintain technology that would lead to a nuclear weapon, as well as continue its human-rights abuses, sponsoring of terrorism, imprisoning of American hostages, and threats to American allies, including Israel.

So much for Europe’s efforts to put the junk science surrounding genetically modified (GMO) food to rest. Berlin last week signaled it will prohibit cultivation of GMO crops in Germany, even if the crops have been approved by EU scientific bodies and despite an attempt by Brussels to legalize them.

Berlin is using an opt-out option granted by the EU to member states in April. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker moved to keep GMO foods generally legal in the EU, but he bowed to green pressure to allow individual states to prohibit EU-approved GMOs in response to concerns that “are usually not based on science but on other considerations.” That means politically driven consumer opposition or agricultural protectionism.

Obama is giving the mountain its Alaskan native name on the eve of visit.
Having spent four decades in a towering identity crisis, North America’s tallest peak is changing names, from Mount McKinley to Denali.

The White House said Sunday that Sally Jewell used her authority as secretary of the Interior Department to switch to the name given to the mountain by Alaskan native tribes.

“Generally believed to be central to the Athabaskan creation story, Denali is a site of significant cultural importance to many Alaska natives,” the White House said in a written statement. The change was announced on the eve of President Barack Obama’s visit to Alaska.

Denali, an Athabaskan word meaning “the high one,” has been the name used by Native Alaskans for centuries, and Mt. McKinley has long been a politically controversial replacement. A prospector exploring the area named the 20,320-foot-high peak after William McKinley after his nomination for president in 1896. In 1901, after Mr. McKinley was assassinated, the U.S. Board on Geographic Names “hurriedly” endorsed it despite the fact that the president had no connection to the mountain, according to the 1995 cartography book “Drawing the Lines—Tales of Maps and Cartocontroversy” by Mark S. Monmonier.

They are fleeing the war in Syria—and turmoil in Iran, Afghanistan and beyond.
Lesbos, Greece

They wash ashore daily. This Greek island is the first port of call for many of the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the war-torn failed states that encircle Europe today. Some 33,000 arrived in Lesbos in August, according to international aid groups, though local authorities believe the real number was much higher. Roughly a third escape Syria’s war zones. The rest hail from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Eritrea, Somalia, even Bangladesh.

Popular with tourists for its mountain vistas overlooking a deep-blue Aegean, Lesbos now doubles as a front-line processing center amid the biggest global refugee crisis since World War II. From here, the refugees sail on commercial vessels to Athens, then make their way by train, bus and foot to Macedonia toward destinations in Western and Northern Europe. The journey begins the moment the they set foot on Lesbos.

Disembarking dingy boats on the island’s northern shoreline, five miles from the Turkish coast, they walk to a makeshift outdoor camp in Molyvos, the first European town they encounter. Body odor mixed with the stench of urine engulfs you even before you set foot in the camp. Families sleep on the ground, garbage strewn all around them.

It’s a mystery to us where President Obama or his interior secretary, Sally Jewell, gets the authority to rename in Alaska a mountain whose name was ratified by Congress a century ago as McKinley. We can understand the Democratic Party’s interest, in that McKinley, a Republican, was a particularly fine President. He was, moreover, one of four presidents felled by an assassin. We can understand, too, the sentiments of Alaska, whose legislature has wanted to change the name. Where, though, does the president come off doing this by fiat?