RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14649/iran-flog-dead-donkey

The Europeans pretend to be working on a magic potion that shall have the dead donkey up and running in no time. For their part, Tehran’s Khomeinist leaders insist that the donkey is alive and well but continue to pull off its legs one by one. The Russians and the Chinese serenade the dead donkey every now and then but are clearly not interested in whether it is dead or alive.

Trump may have done everyone a service by exposing the fraudulent nature of the JCPOA and seeking a fresh round of negotiations to address the totality of issues that have kept relations between Iran and the outside world in a state of crisis for the past four decades. The wisest course in the interest of all concerned is to bury the dead donkey and clear the deck for new initiatives on a solid legal basis.

The failure of the G7 summit to come up with a united and constructive stance on the “Iran problem” would encourage the mullahs to pursue policies that have done so much harm to Iran, indeed to the whole Middle East, in the past four decades.

Of all the futile things one could imagine, beating a dead donkey in the hope of forcing it to move on is the proverbial example. Right now, we are witnessing an example of that in the diplomatic gesticulations designed to maintain the so-called “Iran nuclear deal” on a life-support machine.

The Europeans pretend to be working on a magic potion that shall have the dead donkey up and running in no time. For their part, Tehran’s Khomeinist leaders insist that the donkey is alive and well but continue to pull off its legs one by one. The Russians and the Chinese serenade the dead donkey every now and then but are clearly not interested in whether it is dead or alive.

In theory, the “deal”, also known as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was the fruit of collective efforts by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany on one side and Iran’s Khomeinist establishment on the other. However, in reality, it was a diabolical elixir that President Barack Obama concocted by using every dubious ingredient he could get hold of.

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong police fired multiple tear gas rounds on Saturday night in confrontations with black-clad activists in the city’s Kowloon area, as the Chinese-controlled territory was again rocked by anti-government protests.

Police had kept out of sight during the afternoon as tens of thousands of protesters marched through Mong Kok, usually a busy shopping district. But they charged onto the streets after 9 p.m. (1300 GMT), with hundreds of officers in riot gear pushing back crowds who jeered them.

At around midnight in Wong Tai Sin, a residential area, protesters hurled umbrellas and other objects at police, who responded with pepper spray and then tear gas.

Throughout the evening in Kowloon, police confronted protesters who retreated and regrouped. Some were detained.

Protests against a proposed bill allowing people to be extradited to stand trial in mainland China have grown increasingly violent since June, with police accused of excessive force and failing to protect protesters from suspected gang attacks.

On Saturday, protesters set fires in the streets, outside a police station and in rubbish bins, and blocked the entrance to the Cross-Harbour Tunnel, cutting a major artery linking Hong Kong island and the Kowloon peninsula.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14643/france-sinking-chaos

President Macron never says he is sorry for those who have lost an eye or a hand… from extreme police brutality. Instead, he asked the French parliament to pass a law that almost completely abolishes the right to protest and the presumption of innocence, and that allows the arrest of anyone, anywhere, even without cause. The law was passed.

In June, the French parliament passed another law, severely punishing anyone who says or writes something that might contain “hate speech”. The law is so vague that an American legal scholar, Jonathan Turley, felt compelled to react. “France”, he wrote, “has now become one of the biggest international threats to freedom of speech”.

The main concern of Macron and the French government seems not to be the risk of riots, the public’s discontent, the disappearance of Christianity, the disastrous economic situation, or Islamization and its consequences. Instead, it is climate change.

“The West no longer knows what it is, because it does not know and does not want to know what shaped it, what constituted it, what it was and what it is. (…) This self-asphyxiation leads naturally to a decadence that opens the way to new barbaric civilizations.” — Cardinal Robert Sarah, in Le soir approche et déjà le jour baisse (“The Evening Comes, and already the Light Darkens”).

Paris, Champs-Élysées. July 14. Bastille Day. Just before the military parade begins, President Emmanuel Macron comes down the avenue in an official car to greet the crowd. Thousands of people gathered along the avenue shout “Macron resign”, boo and hurl insults.

At the end of the parade, a few dozen people release yellow balloons into the sky and distribute leaflets saying “The yellow vests are not dead.” The police disperse them, quickly and firmly. Moments later, hundreds of “Antifa” anarchists arrive, throw security barriers on the roadway to erect barricades, start fires and smash the storefronts of several shops. The police have a rough time mastering the situation, but early in the evening, after a few hours, they restore the calm.

A few hours later, thousands of young Arabs from the suburbs gather near the Arc de Triomphe. They have apparently come to “celebrate” in their own way the victory of an Algerian soccer team. More storefronts are smashed, more shops looted. Algerian flags are everywhere. Slogans are belted out: “Long live Algeria”, “France is ours”, “Death to France”. Signs bearing street names are replaced by signs bearing the name of Abd El Kader, the religious and military leader who fought against the French army at the time of the colonization of Algeria. The police limit themselves to stemming the violence in the hope that it will not spread.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2019/08/islams-

Now that a religious discrimination bill is being proposed, there is a considerable risk that the Prime Minister might be contemplating the enactment of legislation to ban so-called ‘hate speech’ on the basis of severe criticism of a religion. As reported by the media, Scott Morrison has been urged by Islamic groups to extent to religious grounds the existing sanctions against those who offend people on the basis of race, gender, age, or disability.[1]

For Australians who have been following the Prime Minister’s approach to freedom of speech, this certainly comes as a very disturbing development.[2] After all, they would know among other things that, in a in December 2017 interview with the then-Fairfax Media, Morrison expressed his unconditional support for further restrictions on religious grounds. The now-Prime Minister declared:

It all starts when you allow … mockery to be made of your faith or your religious festivals — it always starts innocently and it’s always said it is just a joke — just like most discrimination does. And I’m just gonna call that out …  I’ve just taken the decision more recently, I’m just not going to put up with that any more, I don’t think my colleagues are either. Where I think people are being offensive to religion in this country — whichever religion that might be … well, we will just call it out and we will demand the … respect that people should provide to all religions.[3]

The ongoing push for laws that protect religionists from feeling “offended” comes primarily from Islamic groups. Grand Mufti Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed has called on the Prime Minister to push for new laws to extend greater protection to Muslims against so-called “Islamophobia”.[4] He told SBS Arabic 24 that, as the country’s highest Islamic authority, he has personally asked the Prime Minister for laws that would make it illegal to strongly criticise Islam.[5]

This is confirmed by a leaked video of the Prime Minister meeting with Dr Mohamed and other Islamic leaders at Lakemba Mosque. The video shows him being warmly received by the Muslim leadership and urged by them to extend the notorious Section 18C to religious grounds. It shows the Grand Mufti sitting next to Morrison and directly instructing him to create a federal law against “discrimination” based on religion.[6]

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274473/real-feminist-kurdistans-president-nechirvan-kawyar-shahed-omer

As a citizen of Iraqi Kurdistan, I am greatly pleased that not too long ago, Nechirvan Barzani, a strong feminist and advocate for women’s rights, was sworn in as the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s President. When he was Kurdistan’s Prime Minister, I had the honor of working in his media office and the office tasked with rescuing kidnapped Yezidis. There, I witnessed how Barzani is one of the greatest advocates for women’s rights in the Middle East region. I saw how he tirelessly worked to save abducted Yezidi women and girls. I witnessed how he passed legislation that is greatly beneficial for women’s rights.   

Under the leadership of Barzani, Kurdistan amended the Iraqi Personal Status Law, which was used as an excuse to justify honor killings. On top of that, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq ratified Article Eight on the Elimination of Domestic Violence, which outlaws all gender-based violence. As a result of these measures, honor killings in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq are considered intentional homicide and due to the changes in the law, the number of honor killings in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has significantly decreased since the Kurds received autonomy.

In addition, the Kurdish authorities outlawed all forms of forced marriages and female circumcision, restricted polygamy and reformed the inheritance law in order to guarantee a fair share for females. Furthermore, Barzani also succeeded in having the parliament pass a law stressing that a man cannot marry a second wife without the first wife’s permission. The first wife has to come to the court and sign a document stating that she gives her husband permission to take on a second wife. 

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/07/31/israeli-wine-from-settlements-must-be-labelled-canada-court-rules/
TEL AVIV – In a move that has been blasted as illegal by critics, Canada’s Federal Court on Monday ruled that Israeli wines from West Bank settlements can no longer be labeled “Made in Israel.”

In her ruling, Judge Anne L. Mactavish determined that saying wines produced in the West Bank are Israeli made is “false, misleading and deceptive.”  The ruling is an ideological victory for the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movemen.

The settlements “are not part of the State of Israel,” the ruling said, and added that “Canadian federal legislation requires that food products [including wines] that are sold in Canada bear truthful, non-deceptive and non-misleading country of origin labels.”

West Bank Jewish-made wines labeled as “made in Israel” do not fall “within the range of possible, acceptable outcomes which are defensible in respect of the facts and law,” the ruling said. “It is, rather, unreasonable.”

In 2015, the European Union also determined that goods produced in the settlements must not be labeled as made in Israel in a move that was denounced by Israeli officials as being comparable to the Nazi boycott of Jewish goods and shops in the 1930s.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/07/31/britain-cannot-shirk-fight-against-rogue-states/

Now that Boris Johnson has made wholesale changes to the ministerial team whose primary duty is the defence of the realm, it is vital that it results in a radical new approach in the way British foreign policy is conducted. Far too often under Theresa May’s premiership, the defining characteristics of Britain’s engagement with the outside world were prevarication and hesitancy.

About the only time Britain made a firm stand was in the aftermath of the Salisbury poisoning, when not even the risk-averse Mrs May could avoid putting in place robust measures to punish Russia for its involvement in the worst chemical weapons attack on European soil since World War Two.

That said, Mrs May’s dire threats to crack down on Russian activity in Britain have made little impact, to the extent that Russia’s intelligence agencies are now busily rebuilding the spy networks that were dismantled in the wake of the Salisbury attack.

So there is a pressing need for Mr Johnson’s new ministerial team to adopt a more assertive approach if Britain is to reclaim its rightful place at the heart of world affairs, as well as making sure we are better equipped to defend ourselves.

Mr Johnson made encouraging noises during the Conservative leadership contest that he took a serious interest in such issues. He wrote to Dr Julian Lewis, the chair of the Defence Select Committee, that “for too long we have asked the armed forces to do too much with too little resource”, and pledged “that we will exceed the minimum 2 per cent Nato spending target”. His decision to visit the Faslane nuclear base, home to the Trident nuclear deterrent, as one of his first acts as prime minister sent a clear signal of his personal support for the military.

Insights from Quadrant https://quadrant.org.au/

Predictably, but not less galling for being so, an upcoming gathering of conservatives in Sydney, the CPAC conference, has come under attack for — yes, you guessed it! — homophobia, Islamophobia, gynophobia and assorted etceteraphobias, which is the way the Left rolls whenever those with non-progressive perspectives attempt to air their views, even if only among themselves. It works like this: some diligent elf at GetUp! or a piece of human office equipment in a Labor/Greens backroom picks over the listed speakers, googles “name” + “critics”, and quickly finds what others have said by way of denunciation.

This information is then shopped to hack reporters along with the demand that the targeted individual be denied entry to the country. If all the pieces click, the event will be besieged by the feral and violent Left — as has happened to Geert Wilders, Milo Yiannopoulos, Jordan Peterson, Bettina Arndt, the Australian Christian Lobby and any number of others — eager to implement Saul Alinsky’s advice:

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

With the CPAC conference now mere days away, you just knew a dose of Alinsky’s devious medicine was about to be injected into the body politic. Well today it happened, trumpeted with homepage coverage by the ABC, SBS, and Nine newspapers , we read that failed premier, failed federal byelection candidate and camera-ready Sussex Street sweetheart Kristina Keneally has demanded that CPAC speaker Raheem Kassam be denied a visa.

“We should not allow career bigots — a person who spreads hate speech about Muslims, about women, about gay and lesbian people — to enter our country with the express intent of undermining equality,” Senator Keneally said on Tuesday.

Q: What must one do to qualify as a “career bigot”? A: Utter that which is true but must never be said about those high in  the hierarchy of contemporary victimology. Islam, for instance, which Kaseem described to a BBC interviewer as “a fascistic and totalitarian ideology” — an observation which enjoys the distinction of being entirely true.