EUROPE - The European Union will make no new offer on Brexit and those who promoted Britain’s exit without any understanding of how to deliver it deserve a “special place in hell”, European Council President Donald Tusk said on Wednesday. The United Kingdom is on course to leave the EU on March 29 without a deal unless Prime Minister Theresa May can convince the bloc to reopen the divorce agreement she reached in November and then sell it to skeptical British lawmakers. But as Tusk’s pointedly blunt language showed, frustration runs deep among European leaders over the British parliament’s rejection of the divorce deal and May’s demands that the EU now give up on key principles or face disruption in just 50 days.

UK - Donald Tusk has legitimised the UK's decision to leave the EU by claiming there is a "special place in hell" for those who campaigned for Brexit without a plan in 2016, as he "reaffirmed" Britons' rejection of unelected bureaucrats in Brussels, claimed Andrea Leadsom. The leader of the House of Commons told BBC World at One she believed President Tusk's comments were "unacceptable" and "disgraceful".

UK - Nigel Farage claimed three countries were beginning to “fracture” from EU unity noting "comments" from Lithuania, Poland and Hungary. The former Ukip leader and Vice-Chairman of Leave Means Leave rejected claims the EU was standing united over the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. Mr Farage also claimed the one option “looming larger” for the UK was Britain walking away from the European Union on WTO terms. He said: “The truth is they are beginning to fracture. We are hearing comments from Lithuania, we are hearing comments from Poland. Indeed a little bit from Hungary. There is a beginning of a process of fracturing. One of the options now, that is looming larger, and particularly with the British public, is that we leave on WTO (World Trade Organization) terms. That is what Mr Tusk is scared of.”

USA - President Trump said the United States will never become a socialist country in his 2019 State of the Union address. "We stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom — and we condemn the brutality of the Maduro regime, whose socialist policies have turned that nation from being the wealthiest in South America into a state of abject poverty and despair," Trump said Tuesday night. "Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country," the president said. "America was founded on liberty and independence - not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free."

VATICAN - Pope Francis said today that the Vatican would be willing to mediate in the Venezuela crisis, but only if both sides asked for help. The pontiff said preliminary steps to try to bring the warring factions closer together should be taken before mediation from the head of the Catholic church was used. Francis has acknowledged receiving a request from the embattled Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro to help relaunch talks to end the country's political crisis, but is ruling out any involvement unless opposition leader Juan Guaido also requests it. Today the pontiff said he had not read Maduro's letter, which he said arrived via diplomatic pouch.

GERMANY - German factory orders unexpectedly dropped for a second month in December, adding to signs that Europe’s largest economy is facing a more protracted loss in momentum. The 1.6 percent decline, the steepest in six months, may feed speculation that Germany, once Europe’s major growth engine, contracted in the final quarter of 2018. Since the statistics office predicted a “slight” increase in gross domestic product, data have painted a more downbeat picture, and Deutsche Bank argued on Tuesday that the German economy was drifting toward recession amid deteriorating business sentiment.

GERMANY - Germany’s cabinet has approved a revision to the country’s controversial, Nazi-era abortion law, a move that – pending parliamentary approval – would allow doctors and medical associations to provide women with more information about where and how to seek abortions.

USA - Is it okay for the US government to pay for scientific experiments involving bizarre mouse/human hybrid creatures that were created by grafting aborted baby parts on to mice?  Needless to say, the answer to that question is self-evident.  Our tax dollars are being used to fund experiments that are so sickening that it is difficult to find words to describe how evil they are. 

UK - UK cabinet ministers have secretly held talks on plans to delay Brexit by eight weeks, the Telegraph newspaper reported late on Tuesday. The delay would postpone Brexit to May 24. Currently, Britain is due to leave the European Union on March 29. Ministers are hoping the EU will agree to a two-month “grace period” after March 29 in case Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal passes through parliament to provide the additional time for necessary legislation, the report said. May will travel to Brussels on Thursday to tell EU leaders they must accept legally binding changes to the Irish border arrangements of Britain’s divorce deal or face the prospect of a disorderly no-deal Brexit.

UK - The EU attacked Britain’s local government structure and went about seizing control over several areas including the environment and health and safety regulations, an investigative author claimed in a throwback documentary.

EUROPE - The EU laid bare its diminishing clout on the world stage after it failed to respond to three global crises in one day because of infighting among member states. Brussels chiefs have long been battling for sweeping reforms to bind the bloc into an ever closer union in the face of rising populism across the continent and Brexit. But in just 24 jours the European superstate displayed its failure to unite amid squabbling and disagreements among the EU27, which resulted in complete inaction to respond to global crises.

USA - Is the United States about to be dragged into another pointless war that will drag on for years?  Have we learned nothing from the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq?  When Juan Guaido boldly declared himself the new leader of Venezuela during an opposition rally on January 23rd, everybody realized that something was up.  There is no way that he ever would have done that unless he knew in advance that the United States was going to publicly back him. 

USA - The US national debt is wildly out of control, and nobody in Washington seems to care.  According to the US Treasury, the federal government is currently $21,933,491,166,604.77 in debt.  In just a few days, that figure will cross the 22 trillion dollar mark.  Over the last 10 years, we have added more than 11 trillion dollars to the national debt, and that means that it has been growing at a pace of more than a trillion dollars a year.  To call this a major national crisis would be a massive understatement, and yet there is absolutely no urgency in Washington to address this absolutely critical issue.  We are literally destroying the financial future of this nation, but most Americans don’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation that we are facing. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the national debt and interest on that debt will both explode at an exponential rate in future years if we stay on the path that we are currently on. 

USA - “Trump wants to make America great again and I’m all for it and I’m behind him,” Robertson assured listeners. He then laid out his own message: “I’m trying to get people to see that America is never going to be great again until they become at least godly again, that’s my point.” The first lie Robertson debunks in the new book is the claim “God is dead.” Robertson pointed radio listeners to biblical text here paraphrased saying there will be terrible times in the last days, that “people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love.” 

USA - President Donald Trump called upon Congress to pass legislation that would prohibit late-term abortion past the time when science has shown an unborn baby can feel pain. “Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life,” the president said during his State of the Union Address Tuesday evening. “And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth: all children — born and unborn — are made in the holy image of God.” Trump contrasted the “beautiful image of a mother holding her infant child” with the “chilling displays” of New York legislators after Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law a bill that denies “personhood” to unborn babies and makes abortion on demand a fundamental right. A recent Marist poll found 75 percent of Americans want substantial restrictions on abortion, including 60 percent of Democrats and 61 percent of those who identify as “pro-choice.”