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https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/parliament-against-everything/

In the wake of the Parliament’s second rejection of Theresa May’s negotiated withdrawal agreement, the House of Commons is voting on many amendments that are meant to determine what Parliament would like to see happen. The answer turns out to be: almost nothing.
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Parliament already narrowly expressed its wish not to leave the EU without a deal. And today the action is swift. A vote supportive of delaying Brexit and carrying on a second referendum, was defeated resoundingly. Only 85 MPs voted for it. A vote to give parliament more control over the Brexit process-the Benn amendment-taking things out of Theresa May’s hands, was also defeated. The “EEA” or Norway option, of retaining economic ties to the European Union was defeated. Leaving the political project but remaining in the customs union, defeated. And the “Malthouse compromise” which had been promoted by arch-Brexiteers like Jacob Rees Mogg has also been defeated. A plan to allow “indicative votes” — that is, where MPs express support for different options, rather than follow a party plan and the guide of party whips — was also rejected. One of the only things that was approved was an amendment that urged seeking an extension of Article 50 to June 30 if Parliament approves May’s Brexit deal by March 20.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/reeling-from-crisis-to-crisis-britains-may-is-still-standing-11552502536

LONDON-—Prime Minister Theresa May has faced one political disaster after another, losing crucial votes and ministers at a rate not seen in British politics for decades.

Yet she’s still standing.

An extraordinary combination of factors means that despite regular drubbings in parliament, a rolling rebellion among her own cabinet and a flagship Brexit plan that was overwhelmingly rejected for a second time on Tuesday, the 62-year-old continues to hold on to power.

“Normally a leader will at some point confess the game is up,” said Mark Garnier, a Conservative Party lawmaker and former minister. “The party is slightly shocked.”

At the heart of this survival act: a fear among Conservative Party lawmakers about who would replace her.

Ousting Mrs. May could result in a Conservative leader who might take Brexit in a different direction, either forcing a much deeper break from the trading bloc or keeping the country much more closely bound to the European Union.

It could also trigger an election increasing the chance of a hard-left Labour Party coming into power. So Conservative lawmakers, worried that Brexit might suddenly get more radical or not happen at all, are sitting on their hands.

“Nobody wants to mess with this,” said a prominent Conservative euroskeptic. For Conservative party officials to force a change of leader in the midst of Brexit negotiations “seems crazier even than everything else,” said Tony Travers, professor at the London School of Economics.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273144/isis-spokesman-whats-our-crime-we-just-wanted-robert-spencer

In a new video, an Islamic State (ISIS) spokesman named Abu Abd al-Azeem, “whose speech,” noted Reuters, “is peppered with Koranic recitations,” complained about the bad rap his cuddly group has gotten. “Why are we bombed by planes,” he asked plaintively, “why do all the nations of the unbelieving world come together to fight us?…What is our guilt? What is our crime? We (just) wanted to apply the sharia of Allah.”

Indeed. And now, in light of that statement, here are some questions that mainstream counterterror analysts should ponder deeply: did the Islamic State actually apply Sharia? ISIS is routinely dismissed as un-Islamic, but what exactly did they do that cannot be backed up by specific citations from the Qur’an and Hadith? And if the Islamic State just wanted to apply Sharia, and Sharia is entirely benign and compatible with Western values, as Western analysts also regularly insist, then why did the whole world regard the Islamic State as a criminal entity that must be destroyed? Why was it not welcomed into the family of nations, alongside other Sharia regimes including Saudi Arabia and Iran?

The cognitive dissonance arises, of course, from the assurances we received from the likes of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, John Kerry, David Cameron, and virtually every other authority in the Western world that the Islamic State was not Islamic, and indeed, had nothing whatsoever to do with Islam.

This reached absurd levels during the Obama administration. “ISIL does not operate in the name of any religion,” said Obama’s Deputy State Department spokesperson Marie Harf in August 2014. “The president has been very clear about that, and the more we can underscore that, the better.” Yet Abu Abd al-Azeem’s words above make it abundantly clear, as does every other statement ever issued by ISIS, that the group believes itself to be operating in the name of Islam, and indeed, to embody the fullness of Islamic teaching. In June 2014, a video circulated of a masked Islamic State commander telling a cheering crowd: “By Allah, we embarked on our Jihad only to support the religion of Allah….Allah willing, we will establish a state ruled by the Quran and the Sunna….All of you honorable Muslims are the soldiers of the Muslim State.” He promised that the Islamic State would establish “the Sharia of Allah, the Quran, and the Sunna” as the crowed repeatedly responded with screams of “Allahu akbar.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13876/denmark-collapse

The official statistical definition of “descendants” includes only the first generation after the person who migrated to Denmark. So the official figures do not show the real picture.

If the population statistics continue to follow that pattern, ethnic Danes — whose birthrate is far lower than that of non-Western immigrants — will become a minority sometime around the year 2065. According to a 2017 report by Statistics Denmark, only about half of non-Western immigrants between the ages of 16 and 64 are employed (53% of men and 45% of women).

In 2017, a third of the entire Danish population provided for by the basic social-welfare system were immigrants, which constitutes a rise of 82% in a mere seven years. These figures show that the public expenses connected to immigration will, in the long run, bring the welfare state to an end.

The media portrayal of Denmark as a country hostile and inhumane to migrants is misleading, if not completely false.

One reason for the inaccurate picture is that it is painted by journalist’ political bias. Another is that trustworthy official Danish statistics on the country’s immigration problem are both difficult to find and even harder to interpret. A further problem is a lack of reliable research, at best; and purposely distorted data, at worst.

The following breakdown illustrates that rather than being more relatively free of the consequences of mass migration than other European countries in general, and Scandinavian countries in particular, Denmark is in a state of societal collapse. In spite of Copenhagen’s many laws that govern migration and affect immigrants, the Danish people have been experiencing a major cultural and political shift in their life as they have traditionally known it.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-k-lawmakers-rule-out-any-no-deal-brexit-11552504751

By Stephen Fidler and
Jason Douglas

LONDON—British lawmakers on Wednesday unexpectedly ruled out a no-deal exit from the European Union, throwing Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit strategy into further confusion.

The surprise decision, coming a day after Parliament resoundingly rejected for a second time the deal the prime minister negotiated with the EU laying out conditions for the country’s orderly separation from its biggest trading partner, underlined that Mrs. May has largely lost her grip on the Brexit process.

“In the last 24 hours Parliament has now rejected both her deal and no deal,” said Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the main opposition Labour Party. “Parliament must now take control of the situation.”

Despite Wednesday’s vote, under U.K. and EU law the U.K. is still slated to leave the EU on March 29, unless both sides agree to an extension. Mrs. May urged Parliament to figure out what it wants.

“The onus is now on every one of us in this House to find out what that is,” she said.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iranian-court-sentences-u-s-navy-veteran-human-rights-lawyer-11552347406
DUBAI—An Iranian court has sentenced a U.S. Navy veteran for an unspecified crime, according to Iranian state-linked media, in a move that threatens to further strain relations between Washington and Tehran.

Michael White was detained last year in the northeastern city of Mashhad after an individual accused him of wrongdoing, while authorities also were investigating possible security-related charges against him, an Iranian prosecutor said in January.

On Monday, the semiofficial Fars news agency quoted the prosecutor, Gholamali Sadeghi, as saying Mr. White had been sentenced but the report didn’t give any details of the verdict.

A court in Tehran, meanwhile, sentenced Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent human-rights lawyer who has become an international symbol of resistance in Iran, to 38 years in prison and 148 lashes, her husband wrote on Facebook Monday. State-linked media reported a different verdict, quoting the judge in the case as saying Ms. Sotoudeh had been sentenced to seven years in prison, five for conspiring against the state and two for insulting Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Ms. Sotoudeh’s husband, Reza Khandan, insisted that his wife had received the longer reported sentence, though he didn’t know the exact charges, according to the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, which spoke to him.

The verdicts against both Mr. White and Ms. Sotoudeh underscore regular criticism from human-rights advocates and Western government’s of the opacity of Iran’s judiciary system. They have accused the courts of systematically conducting unfair trials, targeting activists and arbitrarily arresting dual and foreign nationals—often charging them with espionage or spreading propaganda, setting up their use by the government as political bargaining chips.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/brussels-jewish-museum-terrorist-sentenced-to-life-in-jail-11552385511

BRUSSELS—A French-Algerian man found guilty last week of murder in a terrorist shooting at the Jewish Museum of Brussels was sentenced to life in prison, concluding the first conviction of a European who joined Islamic State in Syria and returned to stage attacks.

Mehdi Nemmouche, 33, who was convicted Thursday of killing four people in May 2014, received the maximum possible sentence, but could be released from prison under surveillance in as soon as 15 years.

“Life goes on,” Nemmouche said in court before the sentence was read, according to Belgian state broadcaster RTBF.

Nemmouche’s accomplice, Nacer Bendrer, was sentenced to 15 years for supplying him with the weapons for the attack. He could be released after five years.

The decision, reached after roughly eight hours of deliberation, was read out late Monday night, according to RTBF.

The European Jewish Congress said “this appropriate sentence sends a message that terror and anti-Semitic attacks will be judged to the fullest extent of the law.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-k-parliament-votes-down-mays-brexit-deal-11552418563

LONDON—British lawmakers rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit divorce deal for a second time, making a delay in the U.K.’s scheduled March 29 departure from the European Union all but inevitable and intensifying political turmoil and business uncertainty.

The defeat on Tuesday—by 391 votes against to 242 in favor—opens a new chapter in Britain’s chaotic exit from the EU, a process that has already cost banks and companies billions, riven British society and splintered its political landscape.

The deal was meant to set the terms of the end of the U.K.’s decadeslong membership in the EU and its separation from a bloc that represents half of all British trade. Mrs. May’s defeat makes it likely that Parliament will force the government to delay Brexit beyond the end of the month to allow for further negotiations.

Mrs. May could now seek further concessions to her bill from the EU. However, a delayed departure increases the chances for a range of other outcomes, including another referendum over the U.K.’s membership in the EU or a general election.