RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14584/eu-top-down-powers

An examination of von der Leyen’s main policy proposals reveals that she is calling for a massive expansion of top-down powers of the European Commission. Her proposals would substantially increase the role of Brussels in virtually all aspects of economic and social life in Europe — all at the expense of national sovereignty.

Von der Leyen warned that Brussels would overrule EU member states opposed to her tax overhaul… She called for a comprehensive “European Rule of Law Mechanism” to ensure the primacy of EU law over the national laws of EU member states. She warned that there would be financial consequences for member states that refuse to comply…. She called for a change in rules so that the EU could act even without the unanimous consent of EU member states.

“What you’ve seen from Ursula von der Leyen today is an attempt by the EU to take control of every single aspect of our lives. She wants to build a centralized, undemocratic, updated form of Communism that will render [obsolete] nation state parliaments, where the state controls everything, where nation state parliaments will cease to have any relevance at all.” — Nigel Farage, European Parliament, July 16, 2019.

Former German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen has been narrowly confirmed as the next President of the European Commission, the powerful administrative arm of the European Union.

In a secret ballot in the European Parliament on July 16, von der Leyen, a close ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, received 383 votes, only nine more than the 374 required — the lowest margin since the position of President was established in 1958. She will take over from Jean-Claude Junker in November 2019 for a five-year term.

Before the vote, von der Leyen promised an ambitious left-leaning policy program on climate change, taxes, migration and the rule of law. Many of her pledges — which would require transferring yet more national sovereignty to unelected bureaucrats in Brussels — appeared aimed at enticing support for her candidacy from Greens and Socialists in the European Parliament.

In the final vote, however, the Socialists were divided in their support for von der Leyen and the Greens formally opposed her. Interestingly, von der Leyen won with the support of eurosceptics in Central and Eastern Europe after she publicly criticized the way the EU has treated them due to their opposition to mass migration.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14572/eat-irans-lunch

Diplomatic efforts notwithstanding, the free world must realize that the threat posed by a nuclear Iran would be different from any other nation obtaining such weapons.

At the very least, Iran, once it had both nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them, would not even have to use them: the threat to do so would be sufficient to blackmail other countries into doing whatever it asked. If it wanted to control the oilfields of Saudi Arabia or its holy cities, Mecca and Medina, how could Saudi Arabia resist?… What about the tempting oil fields of Abu Dhabi or Kuwait?

Since its revolution in 1979, Iran, often through its proxies such as Hezbollah, has dedicated its resources to expansion and terrorism — not only in Yemen, but also in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and by funding Hamas in the Gaza Strip — to create a geographical arc from Iran to the Mediterranean. Iran has also for years been expanding into South America, particularly Venezuela.

Iran has crossed a new threshold in nuclear enrichment. This means that the nine nations in the world’s nuclear weapons club soon might be forced to acknowledge a new member. Iran’s emergence as a nuclear weapons state, however, if it occurs, will not be merely an addition to the roster of nuclear powers — it will be a terrifying game-changer.

Iran has already reached uranium enrichment levels of around 4.5 percent, Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told the semi-official Fars news agency. Mr. Kamalvandi warned that enrichment could reach 20 percent in the future. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency have confirmed Kamalvandi’s assertions.

Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, in an apparent attempt to increase pressure on ongoing diplomatic negotiations, said that Iran would exceed some other unspecified limit in 60 days.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274398/there-any-hope-western-europe-mark-tapson

Years ago as I was awakening from my long Democrat slumber and educating myself about Islam, one of the most eye-opening books that I read was a 2006 page-turner titled While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West From Within, by a gay American living in Western Europe. Not only was it enlightening, but it made me an instant fan of Bawer’s compelling storytelling. In addition to following his subsequent books such as Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom, The Victims’ Revolution: The Rise of Identity Studies and the Closing of the Liberal Mind, and even a thriller about Islamic terrorism called The Alhambra, I was fortunate and honored to become friends with Bruce through our mutual work for the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Now Bawer has released a new volume with a stark black cover titled Islam: The Essays, a massive collection of well over three hundred of his articles on this crucial subject dating from the fall of 2002 through the summer of 2018. Though he suggests that the reader undertake the book chronologically in order to understand the evolution of his understanding of the topic (“Early on, for instance, I refer to ‘fundamentalist Islam’; soon enough, I drop the word ‘fundamentalist,’ having realized that Islam itself, properly understood, is fundamentalist.”), Bawer is such an engaging, perceptive writer that one can open the book at random to literally any page and find it impossible to stop reading. A chilling chronicle of the Islamization of multicultural Europe over the last 17 years, Islam: The Essays is a must-have for FrontPage Mag readers and for others in need, like I once was, of awareness and insight into the Religion of Peace™.

Bruce Bawer was able to find time to answer a few of my questions about the book and about the Islamization of Europe today.