The forest is also home to the largest herd of European bison, unique birds and insects, and the ECJ has issued an interim order demanding Poland cease its activities. But the Polish government, led by the eurosceptic Rule and Jutice Party (PiS), has claimed the logging is necessary to control a beetle outbreak and has ignored the ECJ ruling. 

It is the latest act of defiance by PiS, having passed controversial judicial reforms giving the government greater powers over the judiciary and the state-run media.  Last week European Council president Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, admitted there was a "question mark" over his country's future with the EU. 

He said: "It smells like an introduction to an announcement that Poland does not need the European Union and that Poland is not needed for the EU. I am afraid we are closer to that moment.” 

EU states are divided on rules under which, for example, a Bulgarian truck driver or a Lithuanian bricklayer can work in France for a limited time for the eastern European wage, often below the minimum level guaranteed in wealthy western Europe.

Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic say they should be allowed to compete on lower prices - just as more developed western EU nations compete on quality products and know-how - to catch up after decades of communist stagnation. The dispute is shaping up as one of the most contentious issues facing the bloc, exacerbating an east-west rift as it seeks unity to tackle Brexit.

Now, a new row is erupting as Polish MPs call for Germany to pay Poland PLN 1.5 trillion (EUR 350 billion, USD 420 billion) in reparations for invading the country during WWII. Marek Jakubiak, a deputy for the anti-establishment Kukiz' 15 grouping, followed similar comments from his conservative peers. Jakubiak told public broadcaster Polish Radio: "The fact that we are a poor country does not come from the fact that we are idiots. The Germans burned our homeland. We lost 50 years.

"I do not want a war with the Germans, I do not want bad relations with Germany... The Germans have to pay for the damage done to Poland and then we will talk normally as partners.” Jarosław Kaczyński, head of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party revealed the matter is on his mind at a convention in July. He said gargantuan damages caused to his country were “really still not made up for”.

PiS deputy Arkadiusz Mularczyk wants a report on whether demanding reparations from Germany is feasible. The final report will be ready by the middle of August. During the invasion by Hitler’s Nazis from 1939 to 1945, Poland lost nearly six million Poles, Mularczyk said. The politician claimed seeking war reparations from Germany was a "moral duty".

His latest comments on the purported head of the Catholic Church may have been his most perceptive as of yet and should be heeded not only by Western secular leaders, but by the globe’s one billion or so Catholics, most of whom regard Jorge Bergoglio as pope.

The Russian President’s statement came on a visit to the Naval Cathedral of St Nicholas in Kronstadt.  Mr Putin succinctly sums up what Pope Francis is not: “If you look around at what he (the Pope) says it’s clear that he is not a man of God.  At least not the Christian God, not the God of the Bible.”

Not only is Pope Francis a Christian fraud as Vladimir Putin and other perceptive commentators have observed, but in secular matters he is a neo-Marxist in economic thought, a One-World Government advocate, and an enthusiast of open borders and mass migration.  In other words, an enemy of what is left of Western Civilization.

The truth is that the establishment absolutely hates anyone that tries to fight their agenda, and having Donald Trump in the White House is their worst nightmare come true. They had been hoping to use the “collusion with Russia” scandal to get him booted out, but that is not moving nearly fast enough for their liking, and so many fear that the deep state may soon resort to even more desperate measures.

Is the deep state really so immensely powerful that there is nothing that a high ranking member of Congress can do to stop them from moving against the president of the United States? The phrase “coup” is being thrown around a lot these days to describe what is taking place.

This is one of the most pivotal moments in American history. If the establishment is able to extinguish the political revolution that Trump has started, we will probably enter an era of tyranny unlike anything we have ever experienced before in this country. But if Trump survives and we can get him some help in DC in 2018, we may actually have a shot at moving this nation in a more positive direction.

The fate of the United States is literally hanging in the balance, and at this moment it is not clear which way things will ultimately go.

Just like virtually everything else promoted by the federal government, such as more spending on the welfare state, universal healthcare, and the implementation of stricter gun laws, the push for a cashless society has nothing to do with what’s best for the American people, despite claims to the contrary.

The fact of the matter is that political elites on both the right and the left have an insatiable appetite for power and control over the people they were elected to represent. Their quest to create a totalitarian society can be compared to a drug addict’s quest to obtain heroin – once they get a taste of it, they never stop wanting more.

The transition into a cashless society is just one of the many ways that political elites feed this hunger for control. As Dylan Charles writes in an article published on The Daily Sheeple, “To some, convenience and trendiness are the greatest selling points of a digital currency, but in order to make it obligatory for everyone, there must be a public safety threat that is acting in our best interests when they force us to accept a digital currency.”

“Before now, even slightly saying such an idea forced politicians to resign. Now that seems no longer the case. The taboo on discussing de-nuclearization has been weakened,” explained Masako Toki of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

North Korea’s increasingly menacing behavior is the obvious cause for this shift in Japanese opinion, but concerns about Chinese threats to take the Senkaku Islands and Russia’s “increasingly aggressive actions in Japan’s airspace in recent years” are cited, along with President Trump’s focus on US domestic issues instead of foreign alliances, and the sense that allowing bad actors to acquire nuclear weapons while peaceable nations play by non-proliferation rules may be a grave strategic mistake.

“There’s a deep fascist streak in politics now. Ironically, the fascism of today marches under the banner of anti-fascism, and it claims the moral credibility of anti-fascism,” D’Souza said. “In other words, it tries to take all the odor of fascism – stained as it is with the Holocaust, Auschwitz – and project it onto Trump and on the right.”

“This is a massive historical deception. That’s the Big Lie at its core,” he said. “If the premise is true that fascism has now crept deeply into the bowels of the left, we can’t pretend like that hasn’t happened and continue with politics as usual.”

“The Republicans that I watch on TV think it’s the 1980s,” he complained. “This is Reagan vs Tip O’Neill. It’s a gentleman’s fight. They can both go out to a bar and have a beer afterwards. That’s not the America we live in now.” D’Souza said his book uncovers “parallels between things that were happening in America and things that were happening in Mussolini’s Italy or Nazi Germany.”

When you look at the long-term charts, you will see that an epic bond bubble has been growing since the early 1980s, and when it finally collapses the financial carnage is going to be unlike anything we have ever seen before.

Since the last financial crisis, global central banks have purchased trillions of dollars worth of bonds, and this has pushed interest rates to absurdly low levels.  But of course this state of affairs cannot go on indefinitely, and Greenspan is extremely concerned about what will happen when interest rates start going in the other direction…

And of course Greenspan is far from alone.  In recent months there have been a whole host of prominent voices warning about the devastation that will take place when the bond market begins to shift. 

In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, the powers that be decided to patch the old system up.  Instead of addressing the root causes of the crisis, they chose to paper over our problems instead, and now we are in the terminal phase of the biggest financial bubble in history.

For two weeks Palestinian worshippers refused to go through metal detectors, and prayed in the thousands in the streets outside the compound, day and night. The Western media has given scant coverage to this important struggle, nor to the increasing repression which ignited it. Corporate media reporting on Palestine, when it does happen, often obscures the issues. The reality is that Israel’s presence there violates international law.

The compound, known to Muslims as the Holy Sanctuary, includes the al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock. It is one of the holiest shrines for Muslims all over the world, as well as an important symbol of Palestinian identity. The shrine is located in the West Bank, which Israel has illegally occupied for 50 years. No government recognizes Israeli sovereignty there.