RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15660/iran-elections-outcome

For the first time in 40 years…. [t]he so-called “moderates” and “reformists” whose task was to give a North Korean-style regime a Scandinavian varnish have been reduced to insignificance…. Thus even without Ahmadinejad’s bloc, the IRGC and affiliates enjoy a solid majority.

The fact that the new Majlis reflects the true nature of the regime as never before must be regarded as a positive development…. In foreign policy, the new Majlis could end the illusion, most recently entertained by former US President Barack Obama, that the way to bring Iran back into the international fold is to back the “moderate” faction by offering concessions to the regime.

The next Majlis reveals the true nature of the Khomeinist system as a typical “Third World” regime with a military-security backbone and a thin ideological varnish. Something like the Castroist outfit in Cuba, the Zimbabwe of Robert Mugabe, and, above all, North Korea, which is Khamenei’s ideal model of government…. Seen in that light, no one would expect the Islamic Republic to respect human rights, encourage citizen participation in decision-making and put the quest for economic development above obsession with ideological purity.

The results show that the overwhelming majority of Iranians either reject the current regime or, at last no longer actively support it…. For the Iranian opposition, the unmasking of the regime is a great boon; knowing who exactly one is fighting against is the first step towards shaping a credible strategy for change.

Describing the latest exercise in voting in Iran’s “elections” may require a high degree of indulgence. When all candidates are pre-approved by the authorities and no one is declared a winner without the stamp of the “Supreme Guide”, to speak of elections would mean stretching lexical flexibility to breaking point. And, yet, the rigmarole in question merits attention for a number of reasons.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15658/german-court-rejects-attempt-to-enshrine-sharia

“From a constitutional-law perspective, the legislature’s decision to establish a duty of neutral conduct with respect to ideological and religious matters for legal trainees must therefore be respected….” — Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court

“The proper functioning of the justice system requires that society not only place trust in individual judges, but also in the justice system in general.” — Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court

“With this groundbreaking decision, the court sent an important signal in favor of the ideological neutrality of state institutions. Especially in today’s society, in which people from many countries around the world live with different cultural biographies and also with different religions, the state order must place more value than ever on its ideological neutrality. This is only possible if the state parties to judicial proceedings are not allowed to show religious insignia.” — Hesse’s Minister of Justice Eva Kühne-Hörmann

Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court has ruled that the constitutionally guaranteed religious freedoms of Muslims can be curtailed if public displays of religiosity — in this case wearing Islamic headscarves in German courtrooms — endanger the ideological and religious neutrality of the state.

The court’s landmark ruling effectively smashes a backdoor effort to enshrine Sharia law into the German legal system.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/irans_parliamentary_election_was_a_test_of_survival.html

You can probably guess whether the Islamic Republic passed or failed

The Ministry of the Interior finally announced the results of the election on Sunday, after a prolonged delay.  According to Interior minister Rahmani Fazli, out of approximately 58 million eligible voters, only 24.5 million participated in the election.  This means that tonly 42.5% of citizens voted, the lowest level of turnout in the last 41 years.  The Ministry of Interior added that the turnout in Tehran was 25%, meaning that 75% of the population did not participate at all.

The state-run newspaper Jahan-e San’at wrote on February 23: “The government avoids presenting any statistics that directly or indirectly show the total number of voters[.] … What comes to mind, however, is that the total number of votes cast by Iranian citizens was not significant.  The regime is keen to increase this number to prove its legitimacy.”

This is precisely the proof of the claims from the Iranian opposition, the MEK, about fake statistics during all elections.  Another state-run newspaper wrote, “Tehran has gone through one of the most unprecedented and low-profile elections in history.” 

Reporters who had traveled to Iran at the time of the election testified to widespread boycotts, despite visiting pre-determined constituencies.  The international community has doubts about the Iranian regime’s heavy defeat in this election.  This is while the Islamic Republic of Iran has continuously tried to say during the elections — presidential and parliamentary — that these elections are a referendum, and citizens are voting yes to the system with their participation.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/kurdistan-after-the-u-s-pullback-11582935154?mod=opinion_lead_pos7

Qamishli, Syria

It’s my first time in Kurdistan since the U.S. pulled back and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his proxies invaded last October. How is the situation on the ground? Is Islamic State reappearing? And is the West doing anything to support the Kurdish fighters who are its most reliable allies not only in Syria but in Iraq and Iran? I came here to see with my own eyes.

I’m in the northeastern corner of Syria, at a modern prison in Derik (known in Arabic as Al-Malikiyah), in a cell that smells like an old basement and is filled with stale, garishly colored bedding. A Turkish missile just landed close by, as if to warn the detainees to flee.

I find myself face to face with a dozen French jihadists who were, I was told, among the most vicious assassins of Raqqa. Here they look like poor wrecks in dirty sweatpants and polo shirts—except for one, who was wounded when his legs got caught in a scrap-metal trap. “We know who you are!” he shouts at me in his northern French accent. This is followed by a general clamor of pitiful complaints along the lines of, “Do you know who is going to try us and when?”

These monsters who terrorized the world are now cut off from it. Deprived of daylight, of cellphones, of the single television set that was taken away when the Turkish offensive began, they don’t even know that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, their leader, is dead, killed in an Oct. 26 U.S. air raid. They have but one thing in mind: not to end up in Baghdad to face capital punishment, and instead to return to France, the homeland of the rights of man, including the right to a legal defense.

A few miles away is a cloister lined with arcades and only recently converted into a detention facility for the minor children of terrorists. One, a New Yorker named Nelson, says he’s never committed any crime except to have a father who was a terrorist.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15649/greece-migrant-crisis

“People have seen their properties destroyed, their sheep and goats have been slaughtered, their homes broken into. A few years back, when there were 5,000 migrants on the island, things seemed bad enough. Now there’s a sense that the situation has really got out of hand.” — Nikos Trakellis, community leader in Moria, on the Greek island of Lesbos.

“I fear for the safety of our people, the residents of Lesbos. For the situation to change, many refugees have to be transferred to the mainland and new arrivals from Turkey must be stopped. If not, we are doomed.” — North Aegean Regional Governor Kostas Moutzouris.

“Welcome in Greece are only those we choose. Those who are not welcome will be returned. We will permanently shut the door to illegal human traffickers, to those who want to enter even though they are not entitled to asylum.” — Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

Greek officials have said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan personally controls the migration flows to Greece and turns them on and off to extract more money and other political concessions from the European Union.

Turkey, which currently hosts nearly four million Syrian refugees, has said it cannot handle a new influx. It has repeatedly threatened to re-open the floodgates of mass migration to Europe.

A plan by the Greek government to build new migrant camps on five Aegean islands has sparked violent opposition from local residents, who fear that the facilities will encourage yet more mass migration from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

The government says that the new camps, expected to be operational by July 2020, are needed to alleviate overcrowding at other locations that have been the focus of international criticism. Local residents counter that the migrants should be transferred to mainland Greece.

On February 25, more than 500 locals prevented construction workers from accessing the site of a proposed new migrant camp at Karava Mantamadou on Lesbos. Riot police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse the crowds.

Similar clashes occurred on Chios, a large Greek island located less than 20 kilometers from Turkey, from where tens of thousands of migrants depart each year in hopes of eventually reaching mainland Europe.

The new site on Lesbos will be a so-called closed camp that tightly controls access and will replace the current open-access camp at Moria. The closed camps will allow migrants to go out during the day but will require them to be locked in at night. The objective is to control their movements and prevent them from escaping to the mainland.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/when-leftist-mob-comes-you-katie-hopkins/

[Author’s note: This article is dedicated to my friend and fellow fighter, Phil Haney.]

What could be more harmless than a British cup of tea?

That’s what our new Chancellor Rishi Sunak must have thought as he shared a benign tweet about making his team a cup of tea while they prepare the budget he has to deliver to British Parliament on March 11.

“Nothing like a good brew,” he said.

He could never have known what was about to befall his brand of choice, Yorkshire Tea.

For the crime of their product featuring in a picture with the Conservative Chancellor, there were demands for a boycott, a ban and worse, much worse. So much so that the Yorkshire Tea employee on the receiving end of all this hate made a personal plea from the Yorkshire Tea account:

‘We’ve spent the last three days answering furious accusations and boycott calls…as the person who’s been answering these tweets, I know it could have been much worse. It’s easier to be on the receiving end of this as a brand than as an individual…But for anyone about to vent their rage online, even to a company – please remember there is a human on the other end of it and try to be kind’.

This is the madness of our times. A social media employee from a tea company imploring people to stop being so cruel, all because it was being drunk by someone from a political party they oppose.

This phrase she used — Be Kind (#BeKind) — has been trending in the UK for much of the week after the suicide of a young and vivacious TV personality, Caroline Flack. She was the captivating host of a popular TV show called Love Island and winner of the BBC Strictly Come Dancing competition in 2014.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/islamic-republic-now-ground-zero-deadly-ari-lieberman/

On Thursday, Iran’s Ministry of Health announced that thus far, 26 people infected with the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, have died and that there were an additional 245 confirmed cases. The latest victim of the disease is Masoumeh Ebtekar, Iran’s Vice President for Women and Family Affairs. In 1979, she was the spokeswoman for radical Islamic fundamentalists who invaded the American embassy in Tehran and took 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage for 444 days. On Tuesday, Iran’s Deputy Health Minister was quarantined due to infection. Several other Iranian parliamentarians have become infected as well.  

Globally, the coronavirus has a fatality rate of between 2 and 3 percent. In Iran, if official figures are to be believed, more than 1 in 10 die from the disease. Clearly, Iranian officials are lying about the extent of the disease and its rapid spread throughout the country. The Islamic Republic has also been the source of dozens of cases outside Iran. Countries including Afghanistan, UAE, Lebanon, Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan and even Canada, have all traced infected travelers to Iran.

Radio Farda, citing reports by Canadian researchers say that the levels of those infected in Iran is much higher than government officials are willing to admit. According to the researchers, it is statistically possible that as many as 18,000 people are infected in the county. That figure is only expected to grow exponentially given the level of obfuscation by the government and the decrepit state of Iran’s healthcare facilities.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/new_sanctions_turn_the_screws_on_venezuelas_maduro.html

Vladimir Putin relishes using Russia’s political and economic power to destabilize and disrupt nations. One example of such activity is in Venezuela, where Russia has been propping up Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro through billions in loans and buying oil with the Russian company Rosneft.

Maduro is one of the most brutal dictators of our time, and the Trump administration is actively working to oust Maduro from power. Millions of citizens have fled Venezuela. The country is overrun with violent drug cartels and Russian and Cuban military units operate freely within the country. Maduro’s government now runs on illegal sources of income such as gold mining, which destroys Venezuela’s environment and widespread drug trafficking, which has brought in many bad players, including Hezbollah, further destabilizing the nation. Venezuela’s legitimate economy and social structure have almost completely collapsed.

In a new effort to get tough on Maduro, the president’s team recently imposed economic sanctions on Rosneft Oil to thwart Russia’s efforts to help Maduro. It’s a smart move.  

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/26/a-jaundiced-take-on-national-conservatism/

Serious democratic conservatives in America, Britain, Israel, and Europe should be under no illusions about the contempt directed at them by Anne Applebaum and her bloc of liberal internationalists who claim to be the great arbiters of democracy in the world today.

The National Conservatism Conference first came to public attention in July, when its Washington, D.C., conference was widely covered in the media and generated scores of essays on the effort to combine traditional conservative ideas with the spirit of national sovereignty now sweeping the developed democracies. Now, the National Conservatism Conference held in Rome on February 3-4, titled “God, Honor, Country: President Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, and the Freedom of Nations,” has attracted similar attention.

Introducing the conference, Christopher DeMuth, a distinguished fellow at the Hudson Institute, noted that the “legacy of national freedom and biblical morality” of Reagan, John Paul II, and Margaret Thatcher, was “under assault.”

“Sophisticated people in the political, media, and university establishments,” DeMuth said, “have become openly contemptuous of democratic choice.” Since the 1990s, we have witnessed “the consolidation of bureaucratic anti-democratic government in Western Europe” and are “beset by hegemonic progressivism, which seeks to quarantine religious observance, traditional culture, bourgeois social norms and the family itself.”

The Rome conference, like the Washington conference before it, featured several deep and penetrating talks and has prompted equally worthy commentary by independent observers (not all of them uncritical, of course). It has also—as DeMuth predicted—been attacked, sometimes with striking dishonesty, by the progressive Left.

One attack, however, came from journalist Anne Applebaum, the author of several admirable books on the history of the Soviet Union and Communism, who was once friendly to Reagan-Thatcher foreign policy conservatism. Her February 10 essay at The Atlantic, “This is How Reaganism and Thatcherism End,” creates a caricature of national conservatism and seriously misrepresents the substance and spirit of the conference at which I spoke.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/02/26/300-terrorists-to-be-released-in-france-by-2023/

Approximately 300 convicted terrorists currently held in French prisons are set to be released by 2023, with 43 of them to be released by the end of this year, according to Breitbart.

The announcement was made by French Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet, who said that in addition to the 43 set to be released in 2020, 60 more of them would be released by the end of 2021. Belloubet said that “they are the subject of a double measure” upon their release, consisting of “a judicial control which means that they are taken care of when they leave, and administrative surveillance measures.”

This decision was met with criticism from French law enforcement and intelligence agencies, with a statement from the Directorate General of Internal Security calling it “a major concern” to see so many terrorists released. One member of Parliament, Eric Ciotti of the Republican Party, has filed a parliamentary motion to keep terrorists in prison indefinitely if they pose a security threat.