Displaying the most recent of 91325 posts written by

Ruth King

Persecution of Alevis in Turkey: Threats, Arbitrary Arrests by Uzay Bulut

Just like the Christian, Jewish, and Yazidi communities in Turkey, Alevis have also been victims of Islamic supremacism for centuries — both in the Ottoman Empire and in the Republic of Turkey.

In Istanbul, the door of an Alevi family was vandalized with a red symbol. “Get out, heathen” and “Islam” were written on the door.

Turkey’s membership in the NATO since 1952, its negotiations for full membership to the EU since 2005, and its countless military, economic, and diplomatic agreements with the West, have done nothing to reduce the persecution against religious minorities in the country.

Pressures against the Alevi community in Turkey are becoming alarmingly commonplace.

Just like the Christian, Jewish, and Yazidi communities in Turkey, Alevis have also been victims of Islamic supremacism for centuries — both in the Ottoman Empire and in the Republic of Turkey.

Alevis are a religious minority Turkey with a distinct faith, philosophy, and culture that largely upholds secularism and humanism. Turkey’s Alevi community is estimated in the tens of millions — up to 25% of the population, making up the country’s largest minority. But the number is only an approximation, because legally, Alevis in Turkey are “non-existent”. The Turkish government does not officially recognize them, so it does not include them in a census and counts them as “Muslims.”

Recently, officials at the Istanbul airport seized the passport of Fatma Tunç, the wife of a dissident author, Aziz Tunç. Mrs. Tunç was preparing to board a plane to Germany when she was told by officials that her passport has been cancelled because “there are dangerous people in her family” and that for her to travel outside of Turkey, her husband and son would have to return. Aziz Tunç’s passport has also been cancelled due to his being prosecuted at a political trial in Turkey.

Mr. Tunç, a columnist and the author of two books about the 1978 Alevi massacre in the city of Maraş in southeastern Turkey, and his son, have been living in exile in Germany for the past two years, as a result of government persecution. “This is downright hostage-taking,” he said.

Video: The Southern Poverty Law Center Scam John Stossel exposes a leftist hate group — and a money-grabbing slander machine.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269049/video-southern-poverty-law-center-scam-frontpagemagcom

In this new video, John Stossel exposes the Southern Poverty Law Center, which he reveals is a leftist hate group and a money-grabbing slander machine. Don’t miss it!

The Soviet-Style Push To Paint Trump As Mentally Ill The president’s actual mental health is irrelevant when you’re carrying out a coup. Matthew Vadum

Powerless to dislodge the duly elected 45th president from office, desperate left-wingers and their media allies are borrowing a page from Soviet Communism by dishonestly portraying President Trump as mentally unfit.

This is a coup attempt in progress and there is no indication it will go away anytime soon. In an earlier age, it might have been called high treason. The difference is that in the Soviet Union it was the government doing the smearing in order to maintain power. In America today, it is the opposition that is doing the smearing in the hope of removing its enemy from power and becoming the government.

Decades ago Moscow set the example that Trump-haters are now following. (Former Soviet propagandist Oleg Atbashian wrote an excellent piece at FrontPage last week on Soviet-style psychiatry.)

“The Soviets devised a system that allowed for political figures — especially those who posed a threat to party leaders — to be declared mentally unfit for office,” Jordan Schachtel writes at Conservative Review.

To combat unsavory political opinions, Soviet leaders from Nikita Khrushchev to Yuri Andropov called on friendly psychiatrists to diagnose dissidents as mentally incapacitated. Some dissidents were then sent to a psikhushka (mental hospital), where they were imprisoned and removed from political life. The pseudo-psychiatry establishment — which in effect acted as an ideological policing agency — continued until the fall of the Soviet Union.

Pseudo-psychiatrists, along with some actual psychiatrists and psychologists, now smear President Trump daily. “Without evidence that there is anything [in] particular wrong, CNN’s Jake Tapper, NBC’s Chuck Todd, the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, and other media figures are now regularly asking about the president’s mental health,” Schachtel writes.

Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), who wants the 25th Amendment invoked and Trump impeached, tweeted Jan. 9: “We have a president who is intellectually ill-equipped for the job. … He is the antithesis of what we should have as a moral leader in our country.”

Left-wing bloviator Keith Olbermann tweeted Jan. 11:

This man has to go. Now. I don’t care if it’s the 25th Amendment, Impeachment, Arrest, Resignation, something “coming up” at his physical tomorrow, General Strike, or we all crash the stock market by selling off. We must Make America AMERICA Again. #MAAA

How Hollywood Killed #MeToo It’s a real Hollywood ending. Daniel Greenfield

When Time picks an abstract concept as its ‘Thing of the Year’, it’s the kiss of death.

The magazine’s 2011 edition celebrated the Arab Spring’s ‘Protester’ just as the worst of the civil wars were getting started. In 2006, it picked ‘You’ just as the big web companies began crushing individuality on the internet. In 2002, it cheered the ‘Whistleblowers’ you haven’t heard from since. And in 1993, it put Arafat and Mandela on the cover as the ‘Peacemakers’. Good luck finding that peace.

So #MeToo was headed for trouble as soon as it became Time’s ‘Thing of the Year’. The cover, with the accusers dressed in somber black, foreshadowed the black dress code at the Golden Globes.

The cover wasn’t a win. It was a sigh of relief. Hollywood, the media and other cultural industries had been running scared of the scandal for months. Now they were finally getting a handle on it. In public relations, you get ahead of the scandal. You understand what makes it tick and take it apart.

Awards season was looming. And the culture industries were figuring out how to take #MeToo apart.

Harvey Weinstein had tried to shift the conversation from the women he was accused of raping to the NRA. Hollywood followed the same basic strategy without being quite as tacky as Harvey. It moved the conversation from #MeToo’s rape accusations to virtue signaling about diversity in the industry.

The best way to fight one hashtag was with another hashtag. #TimesUp replaced #MeToo. But where #MeToo was a raw personal accusation, #TimesUp was an impersonal leftist slogan of political urgency. #TimesUp for all the bad things we don’t like. Especially #MeToo. #TimesUp was safe where #MeToo was risky. US Weekly could advertise 9 #TimesUp products that showed you were down with the cause.

They included a $380 sweater.

#TimesUp had plenty of female stars out front. But they didn’t claim to be victims. Instead they were taking the safe Hollywood position of supporting victims. Victims as far from Hollywood as possible. #TimesUp’s official site features a huge letter from the “sisters” of Hollywood vowing to stand with female farm workers, janitors, health aides and illegal aliens suffering from sexual harassment.

You can’t redirect the problem any further away than farm country.

Gary Furnell Eliot’s Vision of Totalitarian Democracy

His prophesy: ‘We shall have regimentation and conformity, without respect for the needs of the individual soul; the puritanism of a hygienic morality in the interests of efficiency; uniformity of opinion through propaganda, and art only encouraged when it flatters the official doctrines of the time.’

In 1938, T.S. Eliot wrote The Idea of a Christian Society. Eliot’s major theme—a sketched outline of what a Christian society might entail—is stimulating despite the limitations of its context: it deals with England’s situation with the prospect of war casting its grim shadow. But his minor theme—the slide of a liberal society into a type of totalitarian democracy—has a broader, provocative relevance. The degeneration of Italy and Germany into dictatorships and the malignancy of the Soviet Union provided Eliot with examples of nations whose governments made much use of the words freedom and democracy, but twisted them to fit their preferred meaning. Eliot saw this lamentable pattern developing in liberal countries. His nuanced vision is worth revisiting, nearly eighty years later.

Eliot thought that liberalism would do most to prepare the way for a type of totalitarian democracy. (Eliot capitalised Liberalism, but I won’t so that the political project isn’t confused with the Australian political party.) This “totalitarian democracy”—seemingly an oxymoron—would be:

a state of affairs in which we shall have regimentation and conformity, without respect for the needs of the individual soul; the puritanism of a hygienic morality in the interests of efficiency; uniformity of opinion through propaganda, and art only encouraged when it flatters the official doctrines of the time.

President Trump Releases ‘Fake News Awards,’ GOP Website Crashes By Tyler O’Neil

At 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, President Donald Trump tweeted the winners of his “FAKE NEWS Awards.” His tweet directed followers to a page on the Republican Party website (GOP.com), and the page crashed shortly after.

Here is the list:
1. The New York Times’ Paul Krugman

“The New York Times’ Paul Krugman claimed on the day of President Trump’s historic, landslide victory that the economy would never recover,” the article, written by the GOP team, reported. Trump’s victory was not a “landslide.” He won 304 votes in the Electoral College to Clinton’s 227 votes, and he took key states by razor-thin margins. Clinton won the popular vote 48.2 percent to Trump’s 46.1 percent, but Trump still won fair and square, by the rules of the game.

As for the economy, it did not take a hit from Trump’s win, so Krugman’s prediction was “fake news.”
2. ABC News’ Brian Ross

“ABC News’ Brian Ross CHOKES and sends markets in a downward spiral with false report,” the GOP team reported. Ross gave his report on December 1, saying that retired General Michael Flynn would testify that Donald Trump had ordered him to make contact with the Russians about foreign policy while he was still a candidate.

Indeed, the Dow Industrial Average dipped shortly after Ross’s report, until it was proven false.
3. CNN

What? CNN in third place? Now, that’s “fake news.” The network won the bronze trophy for “FALSELY” reporting “that candidate Donald Trump and his son Donald J. Trump, Jr. had access to hacked documents from WikiLeaks.”

Indeed, CNN reported that Donald Trump Jr. received an email with links to the WikiLeaks archive from the hack on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) on September 4, 2016 — before WikiLeaks published the emails. In reality, the email was sent on September 14, after the story went public. A well-deserved “fake news” award.

ELECTIONS ARE COMINGMartha McSally Blasts Dems For Holding Troops ‘Hostage’ Over Immigration By Stephen Kruiser See note please

Martha McSally is an outstanding Representative who is running in the GOP primary for the Senate…..Watch the video….rsk

https://pjmedia.com/video/martha-mcsally-blasts-dems-holding-troops-hostage-immigration/

Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ) joined Tucker Carlson to unload on Dick Durbin and his fellow Democrats for threatening funding for our military unless they get what they want on DACA. McSally, a former fighter pilot, was visibly upset, saying that the Democrats are “d–king around” while focusing on something that isn’t a priority for many voters or a crisis.

Immigration Is Destroying the Welfare State By Spencer P. Morrison

Many Democrats see their party as the working man’s choice. They want to soften capitalism’s rougher edges, humanize big industry, and give the average American a fighting chance. One may (and should) disagree with their methods, but their intentions are good and their beliefs sincere.

That is not how the party elites feel. Their mantra is “open trade and open borders,” as Hillary Clinton told Wall Street bankers in a private speech. Recall how the Democrats supported President Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership, a “free trade” deal that would have gutted American industries. And it is Democrats who oppose President Trump’s attempts to stop illegal immigration, which hurts America’s poor.

The Democrats don’t care about American workers. They care about winning elections.

At this point, the chorus of “progressive” rhetoric reaches a fever pitch. “But we need immigrants to support the welfare state! We need immigrants to pay for Social Security!” Saying it does not make it so.

In truth, immigration is destroying the welfare state, in America and throughout the West. This is happening because immigrants receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes. Of course, this is not true for every immigrant – some never collect government handouts – but it is true for the overall immigrant population. Studies from across the Western world prove this point.

A recent and comprehensive study from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that although immigration is (theoretically) revenue-neutral in America, not all immigrants are created equal. Half of all immigrants actually receive more in government assistance than they pay in taxes, but thankfully, they are balanced out by the other half. Specifically, immigrants who came to America for family reasons, or arrived as refugees, cost a net present value of $170,000.

Abbas curses President Trump By David Zukerman

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, now in the fourth year of his four-year term, delivered a speech to the Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organization that directs a curse at President Trump, insults the U.S. ambassadors to Israel and the United Nations, and denies that Israel has anything to do with Judaism.. The New York Times responded that Abbas “shied away from urging the kind of provocative acts, like ending the Palestinian Authority’s security cooperation with Israel or disbanding the authority itself, that could raise the costs of occupation for Israel and shake officials in Jerusalem and Washington.”

Many Google sources on the speech included the curse that Abbas directed at President Trump: “‘may your house be demolished.” ABC News included the curse and also a call from the PLO to suspend recognition of Israel and end security cooperation with the Jewish state.

The Times acknowledged that Abbas “attacked” President Trump for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, along with David Friedman, U.S. ambassador to the Jewish state, and U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley. It did not provide readers with the language of the curse, which drew laughter from Abbas’s audience, according to media reports. At the Times, attacks on President Trump and members of his administration apparently are not to be considered “provocative acts.”

The Times also reported that Abbas indicated he would never meet with Ambassador Friedman. Curiously, Abbas missed the chance to bolster his attack on Friedman by way of the Times, which, in a December 16, 2016 editorial, called Friedman “A Dangerous Choice for Ambassador to Israel.” The Times also quoted Abbas’s comment that Palestinian reaction to administration policy on Jerusalem would “be worse, but not with high heels.” It is not to be expected that Abbas will be cited by the Times for making a provocative “sexist” comment.

The Times further reported that Abbas, in the course of his two-hour speech, “delivered broadsides against Hamas, other Arab leaders[,] and Britain.”

It is not clear why the Times omitted the anti-Trump curse from its account of the Abbas speech (whose complete text seems to have not yet been posted on the internet). After all, would a Times columnist like Charles M. Blow have difficulty with the curse directed at President Trump?

If the Oslo Accords Are Over, the Real Work of Peace Can Begin Palestinians who work for Israeli companies or socialize with Israelis should not live in fear. By Oded Revivi

Mr. Revivi is chief foreign envoy of the Yesha Council, which represents the 450,000 Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria.

‘Today is the day that the Oslo Accords end,” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared Sunday. “We will not accept for the U.S. to be a mediator, because after what they have done to us”—namely, recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital—“a believer shall not be stung twice in the same place.”

The 82-year-old Palestinian leader cursed President Trump: “Yekhreb beitak!” (literally, “May your house be demolished”). He called Ambassadors Nikki Haley and David Friedman “a disgrace.” He denounced the British for enabling the establishment of a Jewish State, and he described Zionism as “a colonial enterprise that has nothing to do with Jewishness,” and whose real purpose is to “wipe out Palestinians from Palestine.”

Two weeks ago President Trump threatened to stop funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which subsidizes the descendants of Palestinians who left their homes 70 years ago, to which Mr. Abbas replied: “Damn your money!” On Tuesday the administration announced it would withhold $65 million of the planned $125 million.

Mr. Abbas’s tirade shocked the diplomatic world, especially those who regarded him as a statesman. One thing that did not seem to occur to Mr. Abbas was that if Oslo has failed, so has the Palestinian Authority, a corrupt fief that subsists solely on international aid and can barely pay its own personnel. The Palestinian Authority has monopolized peace negotiations for a quarter-century with no progress. Instead, it has taken its place in the multibillion-dollar “peace” industry, made up of bureaucrats, diplomats and pundits whose perspectives haven’t changed since the early 1990s.