FDIC Insurance Fund Facing Disaster of Apocalyptical Proportions
The Associated Press wrote on August 15:
“Regulators on Friday shut down Colonial BancGroup Inc., a big lender in real estate development that marked the biggest U.S. bank failure this year, and a small bank in Pennsylvania [Dwelling House]. The closures boosted to 74 the number of federally insured banks that have failed in 2009… The FDIC estimates that the cost to the deposit insurance fund from the failure of Dwelling House will be $6.8 million. The failure of Colonial is expected to cost the deposit insurance fund an estimated $2.8 billion. The 74 bank failures nationwide this year compare with 25 last year and three in 2007.
“As the economy has soured – with unemployment rising, home prices tumbling and loan defaults soaring – bank failures have cascaded and sapped billions out of the deposit insurance fund. It now stands at its lowest level since 1993, $13 billion as of the first quarter…
“The number of banks on the FDIC’s list of problem institutions leaped to 305 in the first quarter – the highest number since 1994 during the savings and loan crisis – from 252 in the fourth quarter. The FDIC expects U.S. bank failures to cost the insurance fund around $70 billion through 2013.
“The May closing of struggling Florida thrift BankUnited FSB is expected to cost the insurance fund $4.9 billion, the second-largest hit since the financial crisis began.”
If you do the math, these figures are staggering, alarming and nightmarish and absolutely apocalyptical:
If the FDIC had only $13 billion in its insurance fund in its first quarter (January-March 2009), but if the bail-out of Florida’s BankUnited in May will cost $4.9 billion; the bail-out of Pennsylvania’s Dwelling House $6.8 million; and of Colonial Bank $2.8 billion, then the fund would be at a level of approximately just about $6.4 billion.
Reader’s Digest Plans to File For Pre-Arranged Bankruptcy
Reuters reported on August 17:
“Reader’s Digest Association Inc, whose namesake magazine has been a staple of dentists’ offices for generations, said on Monday it planned to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for its U.S. businesses as part of a prearranged plan with lenders to cut debt by 75 percent…
“The bankruptcy would take the form of a prearranged filing, which comes after a company has already reached deals with lenders to reduce debt. The deal, if approved by a bankruptcy court, would allow Reader’s Digest to slash its debt load to $550 million, from the current $2.2 billion. The arrangement would also allow the company to reduce its annual interest payments on remaining debt to less than $80 million from about $145 million…”
The Dollar Will Weaken Even More
Bloomberg wrote on August 19:
“Pacific Investment Management Co., the world’s biggest manager of bond funds, said the dollar will weaken as the U.S. pumps ‘massive’ amounts of money into the economy. The dollar will drop the most against emerging-market counterparts… The greenback is losing its status as the world’s reserve currency… There is no viable immediate alternative to the U.S. dollar for now as the euro region lacks a political union…”
But what will happen when Europe HAS achieved its political union?
President Obama Loses “Messianic Status Over Health Care”
Der Spiegel Online wrote on August 18:
“US President Barack Obama has lost his messianic status in the row over health care reform, say German media commentators… [He] has made a key concession on his planned health-care reform… He has signalled retreat on a proposed provision under which consumers could choose from health insurance sold by the federal government as well as those marketed by private companies.
“‘The public option, whether we have it or we don’t have it, is not the entirety of health care reform,’ the president told a town hall-style audience in Grand Junction, Colorado, on Saturday. ‘This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it.’ Obama’s team is now suggesting a non-profit cooperative insurance system, in a bid to overcome the innate aversions many Americans have towards government involvement…
“The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
“‘The 44th president, once revered as a messiah, is shrinking back to human proportions. This normalization… has been caused by the row over how to improve America’s health-care system. Obama has given up core elements of his most important reform plan in the face of sometimes aggressive, even fired-up protests… Many of Obama’s most glowing supporters are sensing betrayal. The president himself is interpreting his concession as realpolitik. Given the resistance, even from conservative members of his own party, he prefers a modest reform to none at all… But he must take care that his greatest election promise isn’t hacked to little pieces by a revolt by America’s right wing, or through a salami tactic where he himself is wielding the knife’…
“The center-left Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel writes:
“‘America’s mistrust of government is refreshing in some areas, but not when it comes to health care. Health cover[age] for the average citizen in the US against illness and its consequences is worse than in Germany, and they have to pay significantly more for it… Obama is realizing what his nation will and won’t accept. There’s likely to be a health reform in the end. But the overhaul that gets majority backing in the end won’t resemble what he promised in the election campaign.'”
Chuck Norris–“Whom Are We Kidding?”
In a truly thought-provoking editorial, dated August 11, which was published by Human Events.com, actor Chuck Norris wrote the following:
“I decided to research the reasons so many are opposed to Obamacare to separate the facts from the fantasy. What I discovered is that there are indeed dirty little secrets buried deep within the 1,000-plus page health care bill.
“Dirty secret No. 1 in Obamacare is about the government’s coming into homes and usurping parental rights over child care and development. It’s outlined in sections 440 and 1904 of the House bill (Page 838), under the heading ‘home visitation programs for families with young children and families expecting children.’ The programs (provided via grants to states) would educate parents on child behavior and parenting skills.
“The bill says that the government agents, ‘well-trained and competent staff,’ would ‘provide parents with knowledge of age-appropriate child development in cognitive, language, social, emotional, and motor domains … modeling, consulting, and coaching on parenting practices,’ and ‘skills to interact with their child to enhance age-appropriate development.’
“Are you kidding me?! With whose parental principles and values? Their own? Certain experts’? From what field and theory of childhood development?… Do we really believe they would contextualize and personalize every form of parenting in their education, or would they merely universally indoctrinate with their own?
“Are we to assume the state’s mediators would understand every parent’s social or religious core values on parenting? Or would they teach some secular-progressive and religiously neutered version of parental values and wisdom? And if they were to consult and coach those who expect babies, would they ever decide circumstances to be not beneficial for the children and encourage abortions?
“One government rebuttal is that this program would be ‘voluntary.’ Is that right? Does that imply that this agency would just sit back passively until some parent needing parenting skills said, ‘I don’t think I’ll call my parents, priest or friends or read a plethora of books, but I’ll go down to the local government offices’? To the contrary, the bill points to specific targeted groups and problems, on Page 840: The state ‘shall identify and prioritize serving communities that are in high need of such services, especially communities with a high proportion of low-income families.’
“Are we further to conclude by those words that low-income families know less about parenting? Are middle- and upper-class parents really better parents? Less neglectful of their children? Less needful of parental help and training? Is this ‘prioritized’ training not a biased, discriminatory and even prejudicial stereotype and generalization that has no place in federal government, law or practice?
“Bottom line: Is all this what you want or expect in a universal health care bill being rushed through Congress? Do you want government agents coming into your home and telling you how to parent your children? When did government health care turn into government child care?
“Government needs less of a role in running our children’s lives and more of a role in supporting parents’ decisions for their children. Children belong to their parents, not the government. And the parents ought to have the right — and government support — to parent them without the fed’s mandates, education or intervention in our homes…
“Government’s real motives and rationale are quite simple, though rarely, if ever, stated. If one wants to control the future ebbs and flows of a country, one must have command over future generations. That is done by seizing parental and educational power, legislating preferred educational methods and materials, and limiting private educational options. It is so simple that any socialist can understand it. As Josef Stalin once stated, ‘Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.'”
And as the late journalist Robert Novak, who died on August 18, said so accurately: “Always love your country — but never trust your government!”
Health Care Bill — No Matter What?
The Associated Press wrote on August 20:
“Publicly, President Barack Obama is still calling for a bipartisan bill to overhaul the nation’s health care system. Privately, Democrats are preparing a one-party push, which they feel is all but inevitable. Obama urged religious leaders Wednesday to back his proposals, and he prepared for a pep talk to a much larger audience of liberal activists, whose enthusiasm is in question. Polls continued to show slippage in support for the president’s approach, although Americans expressed even less confidence in Republicans’handling of health care.”
President Obama Wants to Repeal Federal Marriage Law
USA Today wrote on August 17:
“President Obama insisted Monday he still wants to scrap what he calls a discriminatory federal marriage law, even as his administration angered gay rights activists by defending it in court… Justice Department lawyers filed new papers Monday seeking to throw out a lawsuit brought by a gay couple challenging the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA. Gay rights groups say that by doing so, the administration is failing to follow through on campaign promises made by Obama last year to work to repeal the law… The Clinton-era law denies federal recognition of gay marriage and gives states the right to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
“Obama said he plans to work with Congress to repeal the law, and said his administration ‘will continue to examine and implement measures that will help extend rights and benefits’ to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender couples under existing law. The government says in its court filing that it will defend the statute in this case because a reasonable argument can be made that the law is constitutional… Justice lawyers have argued that the act is constitutional and contend that awarding federal marriage benefits to gays would infringe on the rights of taxpayers in the 30 states that specifically prohibit same-sex marriages.”
According to some news reports, while the Justice Department filed papers asking to enforce the marriage law, President Obama filed a separate document pointing out that he considers the law to be discriminatory.
Scotland Angers the USA
AFP wrote on August 20:
“The terminally-ill Libyan convicted over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing was released on compassionate grounds from jail in Scotland Thursday, sparking joy in Tripoli but fury from the United States…
“Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi, the only person convicted for downing a US passenger jet that killed 270 people, left Greenock Prison in a convoy headed for nearby Glasgow airport, where a Libyan plane [in fact, one of Moammar Gadhafi’s private planes] was waiting. His release came barely an hour after Scotland’s justice minister announced that he was being freed because he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer and has less than three months to live…
“But the gesture was immediately condemned by the US government. ‘The United States deeply regrets the decision by the Scottish Executive to release Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi,’ a White House statement said… US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, US lawmakers and relatives of the American dead had also fiercely opposed the move.
“The bombing of Pan Am flight 103 which blew up over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on December 21, 1988, was the worst terrorist attack committed in Britain… Seven US senators wrote to the Scottish government demanding that Megrahi — convicted in 2001 after a trial held under Scots law at a special court in the Netherlands — serve out his sentence in Britain.
“Following the release, Megrahi was expected to be back with his family in time for the Islamic holy month of Ramadan which starts Friday. The decision comes amid thawing relations between Libya and Britain, which were arch-enemies in the 1980s and 1990s. Libya has the largest proven oil reserves of any country in Africa, much of it still untapped, and British firms including BP and Shell have signed major exploration deals in the country in recent years. Saad Djebbar, a lawyer who has worked with the Libyan government on the case, told BBC radio that freeing Megrahi would be a huge boost to relations between Britain and the whole Arab world.”
Deutsche Welle added on August 20:
“In the background of all the legal proceedings there has been the combination of money, oil and politics. Without a doubt, oil is a very big part of the Libyan economy… Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was among the first politicians to become involved in helping British Petroleum (BP) and Shell win exploration acreage in Libya. Also, the release of al-Megrahi eases the tensions between Britain and Libya so that business may pick up. It should come as no surprise then that some of the relatives of the victims of the Lockerbie bombings have intimated that a deal had been struck.”
Outrageous Criminal Prosecution of Florida School Administrators for Praying
CNN reported on August 17:
“Two Florida school administrators face contempt charges and possible prison time for saying a prayer at a school luncheon. Pace High School enacted a decree in January banning officials from promoting religion at school events. Frank Lay, principal of Pace High School, and Athletic Director Robert Freeman are accused of violating a consent decree banning employees of Santa Rosa County schools from endorsing religion. They face a non-jury trial September 17 before U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers. The statute under which they are charged carries a maximum penalty of up to six months in prison, subject to sentencing guidelines…
“On January 28, ‘Lay asked Freeman to offer a prayer of blessing during a school-day luncheon for the dedication of a new fieldhouse at Pace High School,’ according to court documents. ‘Freeman complied with the request and offered the prayer at the event. It appears this was a school-sponsored event attended by students, faculty and community members.’
“Attorneys from Liberty Counsel, a conservative legal group helping defend Lay and Freeman, said in a written statement that attendees included booster club members and other adults who helped the field house project, all ‘consenting adults’…
“‘It is a sad day in America when school officials are criminally prosecuted for a prayer over a meal,’ said Mathew Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel and dean of the law school at Liberty University, founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. ‘It is outrageous and an offense to the First Amendment to punish a school official for a simple prayer.’ Liberty Counsel said it is challenging the consent decree, maintaining that it ‘unconstitutionally infringes on the rights of teachers, administrators and students’…”
Afghanistan–The Long and Winding Road…
USA Today wrote on August 17:
“Obama [said] on Monday that the United States didn’t choose to fight in Afghanistan but was forced to invade that country to stop future Sept. 11-type attacks at home… Obama warned Americans that the battle there will be neither quick nor easy.”
The Los Angeles Times added on August 17:
“President Obama today renewed his commitment to dismantling Al Qaeda in Afghanistan — a struggle he said was ‘fundamental to the defense of our people’… ‘This is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity,’ Obama told the annual Veterans of Foreign Wars conference… ‘Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which Al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans.'”
“Afghanistan Is a Disaster”
Der Spiegel Online wrote on August 17:
“In a SPIEGEL interview, former German Defense Minister Volker Rühe [member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party] speaks in bold terms about how politicians in Berlin have failed [in Afghanistan] and why Germany needs to use all of its military might in the country.”
We are quoting the following excerpts from Mr. Rühe’s comments:
“This mission [in Afghanistan] is a disaster — for NATO, for Germany and for the soldiers dying in the Hindu Kush. If Defense Minister Jung and Peter Struck, the parliamentary leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), are really hoping that we will stay in Afghanistan for 10 more years, then we are really in for a nightmare…
“Over the next two years, we should engage ourselves with all our might, and then we should initiate a withdrawal. The Americans will do exactly the same thing because Obama wants to get re-elected. But in Germany there has not been a serious debate about this once during the election campaign… The parties should finally express their opinions about Afghanistan in precise terms — but they all lack the courage to do so… If we say that we are going to stay for another 10 years, the Afghans are not going to be in any particular rush to stand up on their own two feet…
“In the Balkans, the real issue is democracy in Europe. But that kind of nation-building is not going to work in Afghanistan. If you walk up to someone in the Hindu Kush and explain to them that you are trying to introduce democracy in Afghanistan, they will laugh themselves silly… It is not in the interest of Germany or NATO to get themselves tied down there for another 10 years. The alliance needs to once again focus itself on tasks in the European field of activity, such as the Middle East…
“[For the next two years, Germany] should think about improving our equipment. For example, we shouldn’t abstain from using certain weapons just because they might look too war-like. But, more than anything, we need to assume more responsibility. Whenever the French or the British fall into danger, we need to be the ones to help them out, even if it’s in the hard-fought southern part of the country. Loyalty to the alliance demands it… remember, we are involved in a military conflict. Our soldiers are not armed development workers…”
The Real Afghanistan
Deutsche Welle wrote on August 18:
“Afghanistan’s election campaign has been marked by violence and corruption…
“The Taliban, who have promised to disrupt elections with a campaign of terror, have shown they can strike wherever they want… since the US-led invasion in 2001 and the toppling of the Taliban regime, the insurgents are again on the rise and have a presence in 70 percent of the country…
“From flying to campaign rallies in government helicopters to brokering power deals with warlords, and pardoning drug traffickers, Karzai is pulling out all the stops to secure his re-election… In the past few days Karzai has also passed a law which is effectively selling out women’s rights in the hope of winning the conservative vote.”
As NBC’s Today Show reported on August 18, women can be criminally prosecuted and jailed when they run away from their abusive and violent husbands. Many women are in jail right now for “adultery,” even though they were raped. When the NBC reporter asked the prison jailer how he can in good conscience continue to “guard” these innocent women, he answered, “This is a Muslim country.” According to NBC’s report, the new law endorsed by Karzai allows husbands to beat their wives–even with chains–without any fear of penalty.
Iran’s True Intentions
WorldNetDaily wrote on August 17:
“Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei yesterday called on Muslim nations around the world to unite militarily in response to the imminent coming of Islam’s messianic savior – the Mahdi. Khamenei, through his spokesman Ali Saeedi, specifically beckoned the nations of Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan and Afghanistan to join together with Iran in preparation for the Mahdi’s soon coming.
“The purpose of uniting now, a report in Al Arabiya explained, is to fight Israel and the U.S. – seen as the two greatest obstacles to the coming of the Mahdi and the age of Islamic ‘justice’ that would ensue. ‘We have to train honest forces that can stop the obstacles that may hinder the coming of the Mahdi like the United States and Israel,’ Saeedi stated. Saeedi also emphasized that the Iranian revolutionary guard possessed a special religious authority to prepare the way for the Mahdi…
“With news arriving this past week that Iran now has the capability to develop nuclear weapons, the Mahdist conference and this call for Islamic unity under the banner of the Mahdi takes on an added dimension of interest… While some Muslims have emphasized the peaceful nature of the Mahdi’s reign, many in Iran obviously disagree… In [his] work Imam al-Mahdi, the Just Leader of Humanity, Ayatollah Ibrahim al Amini, professor at the Religious Learning Center at Qom… states, ‘The Mahdi will offer the religion of Islam to the Jews and Christians; if they accept it they will be spared, otherwise they will be killed.'”
Hidden Complications of Swine Flu Vaccines?
The British paper, Mail-On-Line, wrote on August 15:
“A warning that the new swine flu jab is linked to a deadly nerve disease has been sent by the Government to senior neurologists in a confidential letter… It tells the neurologists that they must be alert for an increase in a brain disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which could be triggered by the vaccine. GBS attacks the lining of the nerves, causing paralysis and inability to breathe, and can be fatal…
“Concerns have already been raised that the new vaccine has not been sufficiently tested and that the effects, especially on children, are unknown. It is being developed by pharmaceutical companies and will be given to about 13million people during the first wave of immunisation, expected to start in October…
“There are concerns that there could be a repeat of what became known as the ‘1976 debacle’ in the US, where a swine flu vaccine killed 25 people – more than the virus itself. A mass vaccination was given the go-ahead by President Gerald Ford because scientists believed that the swine flu strain was similar to the one responsible for the 1918-19 pandemic, which killed half a million Americans and 20million people worldwide.
“Within days, symptoms of GBS were reported among those who had been immunised and 25 people died from respiratory failure after severe paralysis. One in 80,000 people came down with the condition. In contrast, just one person died of swine flu. More than 40million Americans had received the vaccine by the time the programme was stopped after ten weeks. The US Government paid out millions of dollars in compensation to those affected.
“The swine flu virus in the new vaccine is a slightly different strain from the 1976 virus, but the possibility of an increased incidence of GBS remains a concern.”
DNA Credibility Undermined
The New York Times wrote on August 18:
“Scientists in Israel have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases. The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person…
“Tania Simoncelli, science adviser to the American Civil Liberties Union, said the findings were worrisome. ‘DNA is a lot easier to plant at a crime scene than fingerprints,’ she said. ‘We’re creating a criminal justice system that is increasingly relying on this technology’…
“From a pooled sample of many people’s DNA, the scientists cloned tiny DNA snippets representing the common variants at each spot, creating a library of such snippets. To prepare a DNA sample matching any profile, they just mixed the proper snippets together. They said that a library of 425 different DNA snippets would be enough to cover every conceivable profile.”
Earthquakes in Japan–Is the Big One Coming?
Bloomberg wrote on August 14:
“The three earthquakes that rattled Tokyo this week increased concerns among residents that the first major temblor in 86 years, the so-called Big One, may soon strike the world’s biggest city… The last major earthquake to strike Tokyo and its environs was in 1923, when as many as 142,000 people were killed… some seismologists have long forecast the city may be devastated again by a temblor…
“The city of about 27 million sits adjacent to three major fault lines, situated on the boundary of two tectonic plates, the Philippine and the Eurasian. Japan experiences a fifth of the world’s quakes annually. Of those fault lines, the Nankai Trough has been the source of most concern among seismologists since 1979 because they believe the area of the trough closest to Tokyo is most likely to generate a quake of magnitude-8 in the near future.
“That zone produces a major quake every 118.8 years on average and the last one, which was magnitude 8.4, was in 1854… A magnitude-8 earthquake would be 178 times more powerful than the 6.5 temblor three days ago… A 7.8-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido in July 1993 produced a tsunami with waves as high as 30 meters.”
The Wall Street Journal added on August 17 that another 6.8 earthquake hit off Japan’s southern coast on Monday, which resulted in a Tsunami warning.”
Terror Attacks in Russia
Deutsche Welle reported on August 17:
“A deadly suicide bombing in the southern Russian republic of Ingushetia has been condemned by the European Union… Russian President Dmitry Medvedev responded swiftly to what he described as an ‘act of terror that could have been averted,’ and fired Ingushetia’s interior minister…
“As the gray smoke settled over the twisted rubble, burned cars and blast crater, the attack stoked fears that Ingushetia was replacing Chechnya as the next battleground in southern Russia. Ingushetia, along with the rest of the Caucasus region, has seen a spike in violence in recent months, with Islamic separatists launching regular attacks on politicians and police officers.
“Last Wednesday Ingushetia’s construction minister was brazenly shot to death in his own office. And Monday’s bombing comes just four days after the Kremlin announced that Ingushetia’s President Yunus-Bek Yevkurkov would be returning to work while still recovering from injuries sustained in a bomb attack against him in June.
“Yevkurov blamed Islamic militants for the attack. ‘The militants have carried out this terrorist attack with the aim of destabilizing the situation in the region,’ he said through his spokesman.”
The Wall Street Journal added on August 17:
“The attack poses a serious challenge to the Kremlin and its policies in the largely Muslim North Caucasus, which is home to scores of different ethnic groups that have at various times battled Russian forces or fought among themselves… Rights groups and Caucasus experts have warned that arbitrary arrests, torture and killings by security forces are fueling resentment and turning the sympathies of some of the civilian population to rebel fighters.”
Russia Meddles in Abkhazia
The EUObserver wrote on August 14:
“The EU has said that Russia is contributing to instability in South Caucasus by treating Georgian separatists in Abkhazia as if they were a real country. ‘Vladimir Putin has paid a visit to the Georgian region of Abkhazia without prior consent of the Georgian authorities. The EU does not consider this visit compatible with the principle of territorial integrity nor helpful for international efforts to stabilise the region,’ the Swedish EU presidency said in a statement on Thursday (13 August)…
“Regional tension was highlighted the same day when two people died in a bomb explosion in the Abkhazian town of Gagra… The EU last month issued a similarly critical statement after Russian president Dmitry Medvedev went to South Ossetia…
“Russian troop numbers have… climbed to over 3,600 in Abkhazia over the past 12 months, with Mr Putin on Wednesday announcing he would spend a further €350 million on expanding military and border installations in the territory… Some analysts see Russian strategy in Georgia as designed to repel US military encroachment into its old sphere of influence…”
USA and Britain Knew About Hitler’s Plan to Exterminate the Jews
United Press International reported on August 17:
“The Vatican’s newspaper says the United States and Britain knew about Adolf Hitler’s plans to exterminate the Jews, but did nothing to stop him. L’Osservatore Romano, quoting from the diary of then-U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr., said the British and American governments ignored, downplayed or suppressed intelligence reports about the extermination plans, The Times of London reported Monday.
“In contrast, Pope Pius XII tried to save as many Jews as he could through clandestine means, the L’Osservatore article said. The dispatch is Vatican’s latest effort to restore the reputation of Pope Pius, whose unwillingness to denounce the Nazis publicly resulted in accusations of anti-Semitism and earned him the moniker ‘Hitler’s Pope.’
“The article quoted Morgenthau as saying that as early as August 1942, the U.S. government ‘knew that the Nazis were planning to exterminate all the Jews of Europe,’ The Times said. In his diary, Morgenthau wrote of a telegram, dated Aug. 24, 1942, and passed on to the U.S. State Department, that relayed a report of Hitler’s plan to kill between 3.5 million and 4 million Jews.
“The article also cited a British Foreign Office message that warned of ‘the difficulties of disposing of any considerable number of Jews should they be rescued from enemy occupied territory,’ advising against allocating money for the project.”
