RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/british-parliament-passes-brexit-bill-allowing-jan-31-date-for-withdrawal-from-e-u/

The U.K. House of Commons on Thursday passed a law allowing the country to separate from the European Union by January 31.

In a vote of 330-231, elected lawmakers approved the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, which determines the parameters of Britain’s separation.  The bill will make its way to the unelected House of Lords, which cannot overturn the legislation but can delay its passage into law.

“I have no doubt that their lordships will have heard the resounding message from the British people on the 12th of December,” commented Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay. On that day Brits voted an overwhelming conservative majority into Parliament, handing the opposition Labour Party its worst defeat in decades.

The election and the bill’s passage were resounding victories for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who has repeatedly pledged to “get Brexit done.” The U.K. voted in 2016 to leave the E.U., however Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May was unable to pass legislation authorizing the separation.

If the U.K. withdraws on January 31 as expected, the country will then have to renegotiate its trading relationship with the 28-member E.U. bloc.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15401/china-arctic-power

Unfortunately, the US is largely dependent upon China for these materials, which also lie beneath the huge ice masses of Greenland…. Beijing is proposing to build several airports, harbors, roads and railways in Greenland, which would facilitate the transport of rare earth materials — once they are excavated — to China.

China’s drive for eventual primacy in the Arctic region also extends to the Danish-owned, self-governing network of the 18 Faroe Islands, located midway between Norway and Iceland in the North Atlantic Ocean.

Although China is a latecomer to great-power competition in the Arctic, its Arctic profile could rise quickly if Moscow pools its efforts with Beijing. The Russian Air Force has long had a separate branch for polar aviation, and Russia maintains an extensive nuclear- and diesel-powered fleet of icebreakers.

Also at risk under such a scenario would be the US military facility in Thule, Greenland, which serves as an early-warning node for a nuclear attack on the North American continent.

One important element of the $738 billion National Defense Authorization Act for the Fiscal Year 2020, which US President Donald Trump signed into law in mid-December, is the directive to examine and monitor “Chinese military activities in the Arctic, as well as Chinese foreign direct investment in the Arctic.”

The administration in Washington is right to be concerned about China’s increasing interest in the northern polar region. Two years ago, Beijing published a White Paper outlining its Arctic policy, which includes creating a “Polar Silk Road.” If fully implemented, this policy will challenge the United States and Russia for primacy in the region, where beneath the glaciers lie vast quantities of coal and natural gas.

Two Chinese polar icebreaking research vessels, Xuelong and Xuelong II, are presently carrying out the regime’s 36th scientific expedition in the waters off Antarctica. The crews of these vessels will help complete China’s fifth Antarctic scientific station for the gathering of data and establishment of under-the-ice submarine deployments similar to those operated by Washington and Moscow.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15375/hamas-support-turkey-invasion

The American pullout from the area, which borders on Turkey, was evidently perceived by Erdoğan as a green light for an invasion for which he had been waiting for nearly a decade.

Hamas, like Turkey, not only seeks Israel’s destruction, but also has close ties with the Erdoğan government.

Like its terrorist counterparts across the Middle East, many of which are funded by the Iranian regime, Hamas aims to annihilate Israel not only for being a Jewish state, but for sharing American values of freedom and democracy. In Hamas’s eyes, the Kurds are an extension of that Western alliance.

In mid-October, following US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a withdrawal of American troops from northern Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s military invaded the Kurdish-held area.

Ankara views the Kurds in northern Syria as PKK-affiliated terrorists who, for wanting freedom, are regarded as a serious threat to Turkish national security. Eliminating Kurdish autonomy has been a key priority for Erdoğan since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

The American pullout from the area, which borders on Turkey, was evidently perceived by Erdoğan as a green light for an invasion, for which he had been waiting for nearly a decade. Although there is no doubt about the devastating effect that this move is having and will continue to have on the Kurds, there is a question about whether and to what extent it will affect Israel, a neighboring country that has been a supporter of Kurdish independence and rightly fears an even greater Iranian power-grab in Syria.

Israel’s enemies, unsurprisingly, immediately championed Trump’s announced exit and praised Erdoğan’s invasion. Take Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules the Gaza Strip, for example.

https://www.city-journal.org/french-court-acquittal-of-kabili-traore

The recent decision of a French court would, if taken as precedent, in effect legalize murder—provided that the act was committed in a state of temporary madness caused by intoxication with cannabis.

In 2017, Kabili Traoré, a Muslim of Malian origin, who had no previous psychiatric history but a long criminal record, with 22 convictions—including for robbery, attempted robbery, drug-dealing, and possession of illegal arms—climbed over the balcony of the flat of Sarah Halimi, a Jewish woman age 66, tortured her, and then threw her over the balcony to her death. Traoré appeared to be in a state of religious excitation, for he was heard to shout “Allahu Akbar” and “I have killed Shaitan” (Satan). There is no doubt that he was psychotic at the time, or that his psychotic state was precipitated by his use of cannabis.

The court acquitted Traoré of any crime because he was psychotic when he committed the act, sending him instead to a psychiatric hospital for 20 years. Its decision caused widespread public alarm, repugnance, and derision. But from the strictly juridical point of view, the court might have been right. According to the French criminal code, a man is not to be held criminally responsible if his “discernment”—his judgment—is abolished by a psychiatric or neuropsychiatric state. The code does not make voluntary intoxication an exception to this rule.

Of course, what constitutes the abolition of discernment or judgment is itself a question of judgment. Traoré knew, for example, that his victim was Jewish (she was the only Jew on the block, and he knew this in advance); he also knew that he was killing her. He must have had at least intermittent awareness of his illegal act, for at one point he shouted that there had been a suicide and that the police should be called. On the other hand, it is unlikely that he would have acted as he did had he not been psychotic.

https://amgreatness.com/2020/01/08/what-iran-started-president-trump-will-finish/

Yes we are at war. Not it didn’t start Tuesday night with the missile attack on an air base housing American troops in Iraq. Or last week when President Trump ordered the strike against the Iranian Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani.

The war was started 40 years ago by Iran when then-Ayatollah Khomeini’s fundamentalist followers invaded our embassy in Tehran and took 55 Americans hostage. 

Over the years since then,Iran has continued to escalate the war that they started. 

For example, in 1983, Iranian-backed terrorists murdered 241 Americans in the Beirut barracks bombing which, at the time, was the greatest loss of life in one day for the U.S. Marine Corps since Iwo Jima. 

And that casualty figure would be eclipsed after the attacks of September 11, 2001, once our troops deployed to Iraq. According to a 2019 report, Iran has killed at least 603 U.S. servicemen and women through the use of the squash-head molten cooper IEDs it smuggled into the country and provided its proxy militias to use against our forces. Then there are the thousands of our brave men and women who were maimed by these coward’s weapons and who lost a limb, or multiple limbs. 

https://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/irans-options-in-showdown-with-america-are-all-bad/

After losing its top strategist, military commander and arch-terrorist, Qassem Suleimani, the Iranian theocracy is weighing responses.

One, Iran can quiet down and cease military provocations.

After attacking tankers off its coast, destroying an oil refinery in Saudi Arabia, shooting down a U.S. drone and being responsible for the killing and wounding of Americans in Iraq, Iran could now keep quiet.

It might accept that its strategy of escalation has failed to lead to any quantifiable advantage. Trump did not prove a passive “Twitter tiger,” as his critics mocked. Instead, he upped the stakes to Iran’s disadvantage and existential danger.

The chances, however, for such a logical and passive readjustment by Iran are nil.

Iran believes that Trump’s beefed-up sanctions have all but destroyed its economy and could now extend to secondary boycotts of nations trading with Iran. U.S. sanctions have also squeezed Iranian expeditionary efforts to forge a permanent hegemony and a Shiite crescent extending to the Mediterranean.If unchecked, American economic pressure could eventually lead to a popular rebellion that would topple the theocracy. In sum, a return to the status quo is unlikely.

Two, Iran can agree to re-enter talks about its nuclear program and offer a few concessions.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15398/europe-nigerian-mafia

Italian intelligence has named the Nigerian mafia “the most structured and dynamic” of any foreign crime entity operating in Italy, according to the Washington Post…. What distinguishes the Nigerian crime networks is their severe brutality…

Black Axe has also spread to Canada, where a 2015 report by the Globe and Mail described it as a “death cult”… linked to “decades of murders and rapes…. In the US, the FBI recently linked a series of financial frauds to Black Axe.

“…traffickers tell victims of human trafficking to apply for asylum and then get a status to be able to stay here in Germany, but they continue to be exploited in prostitution.” — Andrea Tivig, Terre des Femmes, Infomigrants.net, March 15, 2019.

“In addition to a common fondness for crime, the culture of immigrant gangs is a cocktail of religion, clan affiliation, honor, shame and brotherhood… The harder and the more brutal [you are], the stronger you are, and then you create awareness of yourself and attract more [people]”. — Naser Khader, member of the Danish Parliament for the Conservative Party and co-founder of the Muslim Reform Movement, Jyllands-Posten, November 22, 2018.

In policy debates, the detrimental effects of migration on crime, particularly gang crime, do not receive nearly the attention — if any — they deserve. They should.

One of the fastest growing criminal networks in Europe is now the Nigerian mafia, which is spreading its criminal activities across the continent. It consists of rival groups such as Black Axe, Vikings and Maphite. Most recently, authorities in Italy, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Malta conducted an international operation directed at two of the major Nigerian mafia groups. Police accused the gangs of human-trafficking, drug trafficking, robbery, extortion, sexual violence and prostitution.

According to a June 2019 report by the Washington Post on the Nigerian mafia in Italy:

“They hold territory from the north in Turin to the south in Palermo. They smuggle drugs and traffic women, deploying them as prostitutes on Italy’s streets. They find new members among the caste of wayward migrants, illicitly recruiting at Italian government-run asylum centers.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15380/turkey-washington-moscow

“Turkey and [Libya’s] Government of National Accord reached an unusual agreement to essentially carve up much of the energy-rich eastern Mediterranean between them — threatening to cut out Greece and Cyprus from the coming bonanza.” — Foreign Policy, Keith Johnson, December 23, 2019.

Turkey’s confrontations with the US and NATO, of which it is a member, have served Russia well, giving Putin huge returns on a relatively small investment — returns that are likely to grow in 2020.

Turkey’s often seeming contradictory relations with the United States and Russia — such as, for instance, Ankara’s boosting of cooperation with Ukraine, on the one hand, and defending the Libyan government against General Khalifa Haftar’s insurgency on the other — likely stem from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s apparent drive to become a leading regional and global power.

To this end, Erdoğan has steadily constructed a repressive authoritarian regime resembling that of Russian President Vladimir Putin. However, as the March 31, 2019 municipal elections in Istanbul demonstrated, Erdoğan’s domestic base, including within his own Justice and Development Party has narrowed in favor of the Turkish nationalist right.

To counter his weakened position at home, Erdoğan evidently thinks he needs to demonize America and resist US policies in Syria and the eastern Mediterranean.

In addition, on its economic front, in May 2019, Turkish ships invaded Cyprus’s Exclusive Economic Zone and started drilling for gas. Turkey interposed its navy there, to deter any resistance, and now is not only increasing its drilling force, but is even talking about drilling in the Aegean or Black Sea.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15397/austria-peoples-party-greens

They [the Austrian Greens Party] now enjoy unprecedented attention not afforded to other small political parties. Moreover, the European Union has always viewed coalition governments with a Greens participation as “sexy and future-oriented”, with German chancellor Angela Merkel having had her eyes on a coalition with the Greens for a long time.

European media outlets are hailing the new and “future-oriented” Austrian government as a “model for Germany”, “the only chance to combat [right-wing] extremism”, and “a model that could be worth copying”. Criticism, even in its slightest form, has been virtually non-existent.

Whereas the Austrian Greens Party is eco-socialist, capitalizing on the current worldwide trends purportedly to save the planet from extinction due to “climate change”, the People’s Party champions an eco-social market economy, developed by former Austrian vice-chancellor Josef Riegler. It calls for the balance of a free market economy, social fairness and the protection of natural resources. How these seemingly conflicting views were reconciled in a coalition agreement will be discussed in the near future.

After the end of a popular coalition government between the Austrian People’s Party and the Freedom Party — as well as snap elections on September 29, 2019, and extensive exploratory talks among all political parties — coalition negotiations between the allegedly center-right People’s Party and the far-left Greens Party reached their conclusion on January 2, 2020. Austrians had to exercise patience for more than 100 days until they would once again be governed by an elected administration. Since the previous government’s crash and the following parliamentary no-confidence vote against then-Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, an unelected, appointed, technocratic caretaker government had been in charge.

The People’s Party under the leadership of Sebastian Kurz together with the Greens under the leadership of Werner Kogler garnered 53% of the vote in 2019, the hitherto smallest support for a coalition government. In 2017, when the People’s Party and the Freedom Party entered their government, they could count on the backing of 62%, a percentage that remained stable in polls until the Chancellor Kurz called for snap elections following the emergence in May 2019 of the Ibiza-video. which showed the Austrian vice-chancellor in a shady meeting with a woman claiming to be the niece of a Russian oligarch on the island of Ibiza.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/iran_fires_ballistic_missiles_at_us_troops__beginning_or_end.html

With reports rapidly emerging from Iran and Iraq, there are a few concrete facts:

The Pentagon confirmed Tuesday night that Iran launched “more than a dozen ballistic missiles” into Iraq. Iran targeted Iraqi military bases in Al-Assad and Erbil that are known to host U.S. and coalition troops. The Pentagon further said that there are no U.S. casualties.

This last is an interesting point because Iran has proven in the past that it can direct its ballistic missiles accurately. This may indicate, as is discussed at greater length below, that these missiles are a feint to hide Iran’s ultimate revenge for Soleimani’s death.

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said President Trump has been briefed and is monitoring the situation but has not yet formally announced a plan of action. Trump himself tweeted out late Tuesday night that he would issue a statement Wednesday morning, as well as saying that all is well:

In an official statement, the Pentagon offered assurance that it would safeguard American personnel and their partners:

These bases have been on high alert due to indications that the Iranian regime planned to attack our forces and interests in the region. As we evaluate the situation and our response, we will take all necessary measures to protect and defend U.S. personnel, partners, and allies in the region.