RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-meaning-of-hong-kong-11593645526?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

China’s decision to impose its national-security law on Hong Kong is a seismic event that goes well beyond the sad fate of its 7.5 million people. The illegal takeover shows that Beijing’s Communist rulers are willing to violate their international commitments with impunity as they spread their authoritarian model.

We say this with regret because we were among those who hoped, amid China’s reform era that began in the 1980s, that the Middle Kingdom could be drawn into a world of peaceful global norms. Hong Kong, a showcase of the prosperity that economic freedom and the rule of law can produce, was a lesson for Beijing to learn from.

Now those hopes are crushed, as China’s Communist legislature imposed the national-security law that ends Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” governance and subverts the rights promised under the Sino-British Joint Declaration of 1984. Beijing promised to preserve Hong Kong’s legal autonomy and freedom of speech, assembly, the press and other liberties. The 7.5 million now subject to this sweeping legislation weren’t even permitted to read the text until it passed.

In a statement Tuesday, Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam claimed that the national-security law “only targets an extremely small minority of offenders while the life and property as well as various legitimate basic rights and freedoms enjoyed by the overwhelming majority of citizens will be protected.”

https://www.newsweek.com/lets-scare-china-help-ourselves-our-friends-same-time

Americans blame China for the COVID-19 pandemic. Whether the virus was manufactured in a lab, was part of a bio-weapons program, derived from the “wet markets,” or something else, it is clear that Chinese government activity and deliberate obfuscation, arrests of scientists and deletion of crucial information has cost the world millions of lives impacted and countless economies damaged.

China has, as yet, paid no price. And that, inevitably, emboldens tyrannical regimes in their pursuit of dictatorial rule at home and abroad. It was true of the Soviet Union, and it is true of China.

Xi Jinping, China’s despot, has taken advantage of the necessary inward turn of Western national governments to increase China’s hold on Hong Kong, passing the “Security Law” that, in violation of the terms of the end of Britain’s lease on the island colony, puts Beijing in direct control. Early reports indicate that four activities are criminalized: secession, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign or external forces.

Those words should be inside quotation marks because all are subject to very wide interpretation. Communist legal interpretations, in particular, differ greatly from those of free societies. In this case, they will be interpreted by a nominally Hong Kong-led national security commission, with a Beijing-appointed advisor. Beijing will have the power to extradite people to the mainland for adjudication of the above national security crimes. It appears that “violators” (protesters) of the law can receive life in prison; the minimum term is 10 years.

In May, when it appeared that the law would pass, the Trump administration said it would no longer consider Hong Kong to be separate from China—thus ending the special economic, customs and travel status of which China has taken advantage. Taiwan, the United Kingdom and Canada announced that they would permit up to millions of people to come to their countries, if necessary.

https://www.meforum.org/61173/turkey-and-qatar-love-in-bloom?utm_source=Middle+East+Forum&utm_campaign=32ec283bff-MEF_Bekdil_2020_07_01_07_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_086cfd423c-32ec283bff-33723125&goal=0_086cfd423c-32ec283bff-33723125&mc_cid=32ec283bff&mc_eid=bb334ea86b

Few Qataris who fought the Ottoman colonialists to gain their independence in 1915 and end the 44-year-long Turkish rule in the peninsula would ever have imagined that their grandchildren would become Turkey’s closest strategic allies.

Qatar, a tiny but extremely wealthy sheikdom, has a constitution based on sharia (Islamic religious law), while Turkey’s constitution is strictly secular (officially, if not in practice). In Qatar, flogging and stoning—unthinkable in Turkey—are legal forms of punishment. In Qatar, apostasy is a crime punishable by death, while in Turkey it is not a criminal offense.

But the ideological kinship between the two Sunni Muslim countries, which is based on passionate political support for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood (and a religious hatred of Israel), seems to have produced a bond that threatens Western interests.In 2014 Turkey and Qatar signed a strategic security agreement that gave Ankara a military base in the Gulf state, which is already home to the largest US air base in the Middle East (al-Udeid). Turkey stationed some 3,000 ground troops at its Qatari base in addition to air and naval units, military trainers, and special operations forces.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/06/30/wall-street-journal-reporter-daniel-pearls-murderer-headed-for-release/

The New York Post reports that a British-born man sentenced to death for kidnapping and beheading Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl could walk free.

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was found guilty of masterminding Pearl’s murder, and sentenced to death in 2002. He has been in jail ever since awaiting the outcome of a series of appeals and legal arguments. His death sentence was overturned in April after Pakistani prosecutors failed to prove he was the killer, The Guardian reported at the time.

“The court has commuted Omar’s death sentence to a seven-year sentence. The murder charges were not proven, so he was given seven years for the kidnapping. Omar has already served 18 years, so his release orders will be issued sometime today. He will be out in a few days,” defense lawyer Khawaja Naveed told Reuters back in April, according to The Guardian.

Pearl’s family, the U.S. Government and media rights groups were outraged over the decision and appeals were filed to reverse the ruling, the outlet reported.

In response, Saeed Sheikh was instead held on a 90-day detention order, expiring Thursday, under a public ordinance that allows defendants to be held in custody longer if their release could lead to violence and chaos, the outlet reported.

However, Pakistan’s supreme court refused a government request to suspend the lower court’s decision to release Saeed Sheikh on Monday and refused to promptly hear an appeal on the ruling, which is now scheduled for Sept. 25, the outlet said.

Pakistan’s prosecutor, Faiz Shah, declined to say whether they will seek an order extending Saeed Sheikh’s detention, meaning the man could be walking free as early as Thursday, the outlet reported.

“The prosecution’s cases are won or lost not on the basis of emotion, they are won or lost on the basis of evidence and in this case the prosecution did a woeful job,” Mahmood Sheikh, Saeed Sheikh’s lawyer, no relation, told The Guardian.

“If Daniel Pearl’s parents have any grievance or complaint it should be against the Pakistani authorities for the prosecution’s failings.”

In January 2002, Pearl was an intrepid journalist investigating Islamic militants in Karachi when he was kidnapped by Saeed Sheikh. He was eventually beheaded in a filmed execution that was shared around the world, according to The New York Post.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/china-swallows-hong-kong/

The Chinese Communist Party, through what it portrays as its legislature (the “National People’s Congress”), has enacted a law crushing democracy in Hong Kong.

Under the guise of protecting “national security,” the new law criminalizes as “subversion” and “terrorism” various expressions of protest and political dissent. It further endeavors to cut off Hong Kong’s support lines by criminalizing, as conspiracy to endanger national security, sundry exchanges with other countries and outside groups.

The people of Hong Kong have been protesting against Beijing’s increasingly overt repression for over a year. President Trump, however, has prized what he claims is a strong personal relationship with China’s CCP strongman, Xi Xinping; he has thus been reluctant to pressure Beijing or lend rhetorical support to democracy activists — in stark contrast to President Reagan’s support for the anti-Communist democracy movement in Poland.

More recently though, with Beijing’s cover-up of the origins and seriousness of the novel coronavirus having contributed mightily to a deep U.S. economic downturn and the wounding of his reelection bid, the president has reversed course. “China claims it is protecting national security, but the truth is that Hong Kong was secure and prosperous as a free society,” he recently asserted. “Beijing’s decision reverses all of that.”

The Trump administration has indicated that some sanctions would be imposed on some Chinese officials responsible for strangling Hong Kong, though not on Xi. It has further vowed to revoke Hong Kong’s preferential customs and trade status — a move that makes sense if Hong Kong is now like any other Chinese city, but that will hurt Hong Kong more than it does China. All in all, however, the U.S. has done nothing with much bite, certainly nothing that has dissuaded Xi from his course.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16128/corporate-thought-police

Sweden has been steeped in political correctness for decades; its failed immigration policies, which have had multiple negative consequences, as reported by Gatestone Institute, have long been taboo.

The idea that free speech is not a fundamental liberty that must be defended at all costs runs deep in Sweden.

Radio personality and NBA announcer Grant Napear was fired from his radio show at KHTK radio and resigned as the Sacramento Kings play-by-play TV announcer after tweeting on June 1, “All Lives Matter… every single one!”, in reference to protests by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

A young Democrat data scientist, David Shor, was fired by the research firm for which he was working, Civis Analytics, after tweeting about the electoral effectiveness of peaceful protest as opposed to violent protest.

Our corporate thought police have been working overtime, and from the look of it, they are only beginning.

Mats Skogkär, a journalist and editorial writer at one of Sweden’s largest regional newspapers, Sydsvenskan, was recently demoted from editorial writer to a non-writing position for tweeting the following:

“When you see the Left’s almost sexual excitement over the riots in the United States, over the looting, fires and violence, it also becomes easier to understand its desire to create similar conditions here with a large… segregated underclass of migrants”.

“A tweet way over the line,” wrote Jonas Kanje, editor in chief at Sydsvenskan, after receiving backlash on Twitter. “A way to express yourself that Sydsvenskan can never support. I dissociate myself from it.”

According to the Swedish publishing house Bonnier, which owns Sydsvenskan, “Bonnier defends freedom of expression… a diversity of voices and perspectives should be heard in our media”.

Less than a week later, Sören Åkeby, who had an advisory role on the board of the Swedish football team, ÖFK, was let go by the board for sharing a Facebook post that “directly violate[s] ÖFK’s values”. The post that Åkeby shared contained the following:

“Another Swede murdered by a racial stranger!… [The boy] was stabbed when he helped a Swedish girl who was being raped by a Somali… Don’t stand by and watch your own people get murdered, raped and humiliated. Organize and resist this alien invasion. We are at war!”

“I read it too quickly and just [shared it],” Åkeby apologized.

“I certainly don’t have those (thoughts)… I have trained foreign players for more or less all my life… For me, this became so surreal… I’m definitely not a racist. I’ll take it back. I will delete the posts immediately if it is interpreted this way. I didn’t mean to.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-passes-hong-kong-security-law-aimed-at-crushing-protests-11593488146?mod=hp_lead_pos1

HONG KONG—China’s legislature approved Tuesday a sweeping new law aimed at quashing threats to national security in Hong Kong, rejecting Western criticism that Beijing’s efforts will curb people’s freedoms in the protest-torn city.

The legislation was passed by senior Chinese lawmakers, according to Lau Siu-kai, a senior adviser to Beijing on Hong Kong policy. Drafted and approved in an unusually rapid and opaque process, the law has stirred fears across pro-democracy groups, businesses, schools and media over its potential impact.

The law is meant to prevent and punish subversive, secessionist and terrorist activities in the former British colony, as well as collusion with foreign forces. Its full text is expected to be released later Tuesday and the law may be put into effect in time for the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to Chinese rule on Wednesday.

Since Beijing first announced plans for enacting national-security legislation for Hong Kong in late May, Chinese officials have repeatedly rebuffed criticism from opposition politicians and rights activists in the city, as well as the U.S. and other Western powers, who have decried the law as a tool for suppressing civil liberties in the Asian financial center and undercutting its promised autonomy from Beijing.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/iranian-ayatollah-gloats-now-its-americans-robert-spencer/

The Iranian Ayatollah Lotfollah Dezhkam, Supreme Leader Khamenei’s representative in Iran’s Fars province, is thrilled about the recent riots in the United States. In a Friday sermon last week, he declared: “The shout of the Iranian nation [is] being heard from the mouths of the Americans themselves: Death to America!” Dezhkam thus reveals that the truth of David Horowitz’s recent observation can be seen clearly from as far away as Iran: “The Democrat Party is at war with America. The alliance between the international jihad and the Left is growing more violent and aggressive in the United States by the day, thanks to political officials who dare not confront them.

Dezhkam gloated over what he believed were signs of the imminent demise of the United States: “The entire world has seen with its very eyes that today, America cannot be the main decision-maker when it comes to strategic matters in the world. We are unequivocally informing the American administration, Republicans and Democrats alike: If you’ve shut your ears with cotton balls, remove them [so you can hear]. The sound of America being shattered and of its collapse, is being heard all over the world. The shout of the Iranian nation, which has been leading the fight against America for 40 years, is being heard from mouths of the Americans themselves: Death to America!”

The crowd was thrilled and responded with that ever-popular Iranian slogan: “Death to America! Death to America! Death to America! Death to America!” Do the Leftist rioters in the U.S. also want to see the death of America? Nothing could be clearer. In their iconoclastic fury, they have targeted not only statues of Confederate generals and slave-owners, but of General Ulysses S. Grant, who led the great war to free the slaves; President Theodore Roosevelt, a progressive environmentalist; and of course the slaveholders George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, as well as the abolitionist Abraham Lincoln.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/06/less-bo-jo-more-so-so-whatever-happened-boris-katie-hopkins/

It’s the question everyone is asking, but no one seems to have a definitive answer.

From my personal experiences with Boris what I can say with certainty is that something is not adding up. The man that led London through its most successful period in recent history as its Mayor, and the effervescent beast that rammed Brexit over the line has gone.

The Boris we are looking at now reminds me of the Melania body double. Somewhat similar if you squint a bit, but not quite all there. Less Bo-Jo. More So-So.

There are a few theories behind the sad demise of the blond bombshell. Some are patently absurd. Others more probable, knowing him as I do. But one thing is for sure. If he doesn’t get his act together, and fast, those allies he relied on to get him into power, will be the same forcing him from it. The vultures are in the trees, watching, waiting.