RUTHFULLY YOURS

In December, the Islamic State claimed a suicide bombing in a church inside Cairo’s Coptic cathedral compound that killed 29 (all but one were women and girls). On Palm Sunday, two separate Islamic State suicide bombings killed nearly 50 worshippers.

Over the weekend, the group threatened more attacks on Christians:

That renewed threat prompted interesting commentary from former Obama Homeland Security Advisory Council member Mohamed Elibiary. He claims that the Coptic Christians in Egypt — the largest Christian population in the Middle East — have it coming:

This stunning claim follows a long history of anti-Christian comments by Elibiary going back years, as I’ve reported here at PJ Media:

What has Elibiary upset? Many in the Coptic Christian community backed the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi in 2013. In his tweet, he references “MB Egyptians” — Muslim Brotherhood Egyptians.

He is drawing an analogy between being anti-Muslim Brotherhood, and mass murder.

His past anti-Christian statements have been denounced by Coptic church leaders:

And yet he has repeatedly denounced “collective guilt” when it comes to the Muslim community:

This is quite the role reversal from 2014, when Elibiary’s tweets warning of an inevitable caliphate were used by terror recruiters to push Islamic State propaganda: CONTINUE AT SITE

In a strained bit of humorous idiocy, a flak at the Washington Post spins Emmanuel Macron’s win and Marine Le Pen’s thumping as an “embarrassment” for President Trump.

Aaron Blake, writing for “The Fix,” betrays the MSM’s obsession with pinning anything and everything negative or failed on Trump. Crows Blake:

I argued on this blog that Trump’s comments about Le Pen amounted to an endorsement. He had said that she was the best candidate when it came to the most important issue: the security of her country. And he clearly suggested that her popularity was rising after the terrorist attack, a claim that in retrospect looks haphazard, at best, and foolhardy, at worst.

Sorry, Aaron, but this merits a “Dope Alert.” Most Americans couldn’t give a hoot that the president said nice things about La Pen or even suggested her election as good. Most Americans care about their kids, jobs, and safe streets. Trump’s utterances on the subject matter only to inbreds who breathe the rarified air in DC, New York, and Boston. Or guys like you who get paychecks pulling this inanity from their rears.

Nowhere in Blake’s brilliant analysis did he mention Barack Obama’s profound embarrassment for endorsing Hillary Clinton, whose loss wasn’t predicted by the MSM or all those very smart guys and gals in coastal blue redoubts. After all, Le Pen, trailing badly in the polls, was expected to be hosed. Hillary was practically measuring the drapes in the Oval Office. Who has more egg on his face, Aaron?

Actually, it’s the French who have the most soufflé on their faces. In Le Pen’s concession speech, she acknowledged that the French voted for “continuity.” That they did, but not in any good way. Macron, who served in Hollande’s government, was repackaged and rebranded as an “independent” with a fresh take on France’s growing troubles. He’s actually just old shoes in a new box.

The 39-year-old Macron is a quick, clever invention of France’s globalist, EU-devoted elite. No? Well, he strode to the podium on Election Eve to proclaim his victory to the EU’s anthem, “Ode to Joy.” How’s that for an “In-your-face” gesture? And get this: the guy who composed the “Ode,” Ludwig Van Beethoven, is a German, no less. We all know about the evidence-rich Trump-Putin conspiracy in our own elections. Might Macron taking the stage to a German ditty reveal Angela Merkel’s conspiracy with him in the French contest?

A big problem for France is that its economy is practically stagnant. It has been for decades (that’s correct, “decades”). But who would blame big, central, bureaucratized government for an economy’s woes? Or a bevy of entrenched interests that profit handsomely from a government-dominated economy? Not the EU’s Jean-Claude Juncker.

Reported the Guardian on April 30:

There is a familiar rhythm to French politics. President gets elected amid a wave of optimism. President says root and branch reform of the economy will lead to stronger growth and falling unemployment. President fails to deliver the promised transformation. Economy continues to struggle. President gets booted out of office.

In the past 30 years, François Mitterand, Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande have won elections for the mainstream parties of the centre left and centre right but France’s economic problems have not been resolved. It says something about how poor performance has been under Hollande that growth of barely more than 1% in 2016 was good by recent standards.

France’s unemployment rate hovers around 10% (higher than its pre-EU rate of 8%). Germany’s stands at about 4%. French youth unemployment — that’s under 25-year-olds — is about 25%. Germany’s is much lower. Idle minds make for the devil’s workshop.

As the Guardian points out, the French have developed an inferiority complex vis-à-vis their German allies, who are outperforming them economically. Without getting too much into the weeds, Macron wants Frau Merkel to “reflate” the German economy and boost consumer spending. He wants monetary reform to prop-up the Euro, too.

Iranian voters head to the polls later this month to elect their next president, without much of a choice. The contest is shaping up as a race between several Islamic hard-liners and one hard-liner whom the Western media prefer to cast as a moderate.

The unelected Guardian Council eliminated more than 1,600 candidates, including 137 women, who are constitutionally prohibited from holding that office. The Council deemed only six candidates morally sound, which in Iran means thoroughly committed to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the nuclear program and the destruction of Israel.

Among the challengers, Ebrahim Raisi has garnered the greatest attention. The 56-year-old cleric is a protege of Mr. Khamenei, and our sources say he enjoys the support of elements of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the security apparatus.

Rumors out of Tehran suggest he could succeed the ailing Mr. Khamenei, and he certainly sounds like he has emerged from central theocratic casting. Shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, he was appointed a revolutionary prosecutor—at age 19. A decade later he was one of the prosecutors who oversaw the summary execution of thousands of opponents of the regime.

His rhetoric has invited comparisons with former President and Holocaust-denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “The ominous triangle of the United States, Britain and the Zionist regime is the most hated phenomenon among peoples the world over,” Mr. Raisi has said. He has also predicted that “one day soon the filthy stain of arrogance will be wiped not only from Jerusalem but also from the Noble Sanctuaries”—the latter a reference to the Saudis, who administer some of the holiest sites in Islam.

Mr. Raisi also believes the Iranian regime’s borders extend across Syria, “which we consider our frontier for defending the Islamic Republic’s security and identity.”

Mr. Raisi and others will try to oust incumbent President Hassan Rouhani, who is often styled as a moderate despite his record in and out of office. Mr. Rouhani spearheaded the bloody crackdown against the 1999 student uprising and helped oversee a campaign of assassinations targeting dissidents abroad in the 1990s.

As for Mr. Rouhani’s presidential record, domestic repression has intensified. The leaders of the pro-democracy Green Movement remain under house arrest despite campaign promises to free them. Religious minorities continue to face systematic harassment and discrimination, and at least half a dozen American and British dual citizens remain under arrest as hostages.

Beyond Iran’s borders, the regime has continued to promote instability, underwriting Bashar Assad’s Syrian slaughter, deepening military cooperation with Vladimir Putin and funding Shiite terror proxies from Yemen to Lebanon. In all these cases, Mr. Rouhani has been powerless or unwilling to change course.

As for relations with the U.S., Messrs. Rouhani and Raisi both support President Obama’s nuclear deal. That accord has granted Tehran a much-needed financial reprieve even as it will leave the regime a threshold nuclear power by the time it sunsets. Hope for averting that outcome will not come through the artifice of Iran’s presidential election.