RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://thefederalist.com/2019/02/26/doctors-insist-canadian-14-year-old-needs-no-parent-consent-trans-hormone-injections/

Clark* first found out that his 12-year-old daughter Maxine was being treated as a boy by her school when he saw her new name in her class’s grade seven yearbook. “Quinn” was the new name her counselor had helped her pick out, and Maxine’s school district in Delta, British Columbia, Canada, had decided that “Quinn” should be treated, for all intents and purposes, as a boy.

The district apparently felt justified in leaving Maxine’s father completely out of the loop. Maxine’s school district was operating by the BC Ministry of Education’s Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Policy, according to which Clark had no right to know his daughter’s “preferred sex, gender, or name” at school.

Presented with a fait accompli from the school district and a daughter who was becoming increasingly passionate about her transgender identity, Clark found himself in a difficult situation. He did not want to reject his daughter’s newfound passion outright but, at the same time, he was cautious about her moving into transgenderism too quickly.

Ever since her parents separated in 2013, Maxine had struggled emotionally to cope, experiencing behavioral problems and depression which Clark felt left her “very vulnerable” and searching for a place to belong. During the same school year that she took on a transgender identity, Maxine had apparently also gone through a lesbian phase. Clark couldn’t help but wonder if her new transgender identity might likewise come and go.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/holding-its-tongue-on-democracy-eu-presses-arab-leaders-to-stem-migration-11551121873?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=4&cx_tag=contextual&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt—European Union officials used a first-of-its-kind summit here this week to press Arab leaders to create stability and stem migration but played down calls for democracy, reflecting a desire for calm after years of border tumult.

The two-day meeting between the EU and the Arab League ended Monday without a formal agreement on migration or security cooperation. The assembled leaders issued a declaration that calls for unspecified efforts to address issues ranging from climate change to wars in Yemen, Libya and Syria.

But the gathering in this Red Sea resort town reflected European leaders’ desire to seek new partners to halt to migration across the Mediterranean Sea following years of war and an influx of refugees after the Arab Spring revolts of 2011.

EU leaders such as European Council President Donald Tusk gathered with autocrats the bloc once shunned, including Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, and asked for help. EU leaders have in the past loudly called out leaders like Mr. Sisi for brutal crackdowns on political opponents, including torture and killings of civilians.

But Mr. Sisi and other leaders here have reasserted their hold on power after the tumult of 2011 uprisings.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-saudis-hedge-their-american-bets-11551138149

It is, in its way, the most shocking spectacle in world politics since the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union: Even as Beijing is stepping up its persecution of Muslim Uighurs, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia cozied up to Chinese President Xi Jinping on his trip to China last week.

More than a million Uighur Muslims are said to be held in Chinese concentration and “re-education” camps, where beatings and mass rapes are reliably reported to be perpetrated against detainees. Yet the crown prince of the leading Sunni Islamic state signed almost $30 billion in trade agreements with China, hailed the long problem-free relationship between the two countries, pledged support for the Belt and Road initiative, and announced that Saudi Arabia respected China’s need to protect its domestic security in its own way.

God may be great, but Xi Jinping, apparently, is greater. Or at least more useful.

Saudi Arabia is not the only Muslim power kowtowing to China. Pakistan has also fallen strangely silent when it comes to the concentration camps now dotting the landscape in Xinjiang. A country that regularly whips itself into fits of murderous rage over the supposed plight of Muslims in Indian-controlled Kashmir remains rigorously calm about the massive religious repression by its more powerful neighbor.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13786/ireland-raw-bigotry

The Irish legislation, banning the import of goods from Israeli communities located beyond the 1949 armistice lines, not only coincides ironically with the U.S. Senate passage of a motion to prevent anti-Israel boycotts, but also constitutes a breach of European trade law.

These Irish “humanitarians” also do not seem to care about the suffering of the inhabitants of the Palestinian Authority and the Gaza Strip, who continue to suffer from large-scale abuse and persecution at the hands of their own despotic leaders.

Meanwhile, other nations actually guilty of serious human rights abuses, war crimes and ethnic cleansing — such as Syria, Iran, China, North Korea, Turkey and Russia, to name a few — are spared Irish indignation and legislation.

Ireland’s legislation appears to be less about actually helping Palestinians to have better lives than an effort to eradicate Israel.

Parliamentarians in the Republic of Ireland are displaying an unprecedented level of hostility towards Israel, unparalleled by that of any other member state of the European Union — inviting the question about Ireland’s long, distasteful history of anti-Semitism, which clearly predates the frequently used pretext of hating the State of Israel.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13795/trump-putin-ukraine-venezuela

If Nicolás Maduro is removed from office in Venezuela, Putin might act as he did when a popular revolution overthrew Yanukovych in Ukraine, in 2014: with a surprise invasion of the Crimea. This time, Putin may launch a surprise naval and land attack on Mariupol, set up a land bridge from Crimea to Russia and continue intensifying his attempt to strangle Ukraine’s economy in order to subjugate Ukraine to Russia. Trump needs to take immediate preemptive measures to prevent Putin from doing that by increasing naval aid to Kiev.

So far, Putin seems to have been counting on a lack of American resolve regarding Venezuela, and has just succeeded in getting China to support him.

If America abdicates its role in Venezuela, you can bet Russia will eventually build intelligence facilities there. Russia has also been providing Nicaragua with “sophisticated weaponry,” including “T-72 tanks, war boats, warplanes, and powerful bombs.”

Above all, President Trump must continue as he is doing now, to work towards liberating the Venezuelan people. Any hesitation will be counterproductive.

America is facing two dangerous crises. In Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, the illegitimate winner of a reportedly sham election, has, with his socialist policies, created a catastrophic situation. The struggle in Venezuela between his challenger, Juan Guaidó, and him is reaching a crescendo. Millions of Venezuelans, suffering under his radical regime, have been flooding neighboring Brazil and Colombia. Yet, with the help of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Maduro is clinging to power, as Fidel Castro did in the early 1960s with the aid of Nikita Khrushchev.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/sanctions-were-supposed-to-cripple-north-koreas-economy-theyre-not-working-11551116032

The U.S. has been leading a world-wide campaign to pressure North Korea into giving up its nuclear arsenal through an increasingly stringent sanctions regime. Available evidence suggests it’s not working.

Economic indicators show day-to-day commerce in the country has remained resilient. And many residents, having lived through much harsher conditions in the 1990s, appear to be adapting as market forces take deeper root, according to three dozen defectors, humanitarian workers, government officials and other visitors interviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The lack of impact is making things tricky for Donald Trump as he heads to this week’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi. The U.S. wants Pyongyang to freeze its nuclear weapons and missile programs while the two sides continue far-reaching talks on denuclearization.

Tougher sanctions, including new restrictions on foreign trade approved in 2016 and 2017, have caused North Korea some pain, depriving the regime and elites of revenue from commerce with other countries, including China.

In other ways, North Korea’s economy appears to be holding up well. Rice prices have remained stable, and gasoline prices, which rose after sanctions were tightened, have fallen significantly from highs in the fall of 2017.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-france-popular-support-for-yellow-vests-cools-off-11551124011

The French public has begun to turn against the yellow-vest movement, according to a new poll, in a fresh sign of relief for President Emmanuel Macron.

The yellow-vest demonstrations began in November to protest proposed increases in fuel taxes before quickly becoming a rallying cry against Mr. Macron and his pro-business agenda. The yellow vests, or “gilets jaunes,” named after the reflective safety vests worn by participants, initially won the support of more than three quarters of the population, who backed some of the protesters’ many demands.

But on Monday Odoxa, an independent French polling agency, published a poll in which 55% of the 1,004 people surveyed said they wanted the protests to stop. That is the first time since the start of the movement that a clear majority has opposed the protesters. The poll was conducted online on Feb. 20 and Feb. 21.

In an Oxoda poll last month, 49% of respondents reported wanting demonstrations to end.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13794/china-militarization

The People’s Liberation Army is arming fast, and that development is triggering alarm. Beijing has always claimed its military is for defensive purposes only, but no country threatens territory under China’s control. The buildup, therefore, looks like preparation for aggression.

Chinese leaders — not just Xi Jinping — believe their domains should be far larger than they are today. The concern is that, acting on their own rhetoric, they will use shiny new weapons to grab territory and occupy, to the exclusion of others, international water and airspace.

Moreover, in the 1930s the media publicized the idea that Japan was being surrounded by hostile powers that wished to prevent its rise. Eri Hotta in Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy writes that the Japanese “talked themselves into believing that they were victims of circumstances rather than aggressors.” That is exactly what the Chinese are doing at this moment.

Unfortunately, this tragic pattern is evident today in a Beijing where Chinese, wearing stars on their shoulders, look as if they want to repeat one of the worst mistakes of the last century.

“Be ready for battle.” That’s how the South China Morning Post, the Hong Kong newspaper that increasingly reflects the Communist Party line, summarized Xi Jinping’s first order this year to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Xi, in his own words, which were broadcasted nationwide, demanded this: “prepare for a comprehensive military struggle from a new starting point.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/02/zimbabwe-people-fear-government-military-violent-suppression-protesters/

History teaches that things may get worse in both countries before they get better.

This weekend’s news that protesters were gunned down at Venezuela’s border while pro-regime thugs burned trucks filled with food and medicine demonstrated just how vicious Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship is. But those who wonder how long he can hold on to power while his nation slowly starves might want to visit Zimbabwe, as I did last month, for a sobering lesson.

Robert Mugabe became the president of Zimbabwe in April 1980, back when Jimmy Carter was still president. Within two years he had deployed his infamous North Korea–trained Fifth Brigade against minority tribes in Matabeleland in a campaign of deliberate killing and starvation. The organization Genocide Watch estimated that 20,000 people were ultimately killed.

Mugabe would later launch an insane seizure of white-owned farms. That led to widespread food shortages and a destructive hyperinflation that resulted in almost-worthless 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollar notes in circulation.

But henchmen from the ruling party, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), violently tamped down protests, and he ruled until November 2017, when a clique of his own generals worried that his wife would replace him overthrew the 94-year-old dictator in a coup. Since then, former minister of defense and current president Emmerson Mnangagwa has proclaimed that his country is “open for business,” when in reality the regime’s slogan should be “The new boss is just like the old boss.”

https://pjmedia.com/trending/maduro-thugs-set-fire-to-aid-trucks-as-four-protesters-dead-in-border-clashes/

The chaotic and confused situation on the border between Venezuela and Colombia erupted in more violence as troops loyal to President Nicolas Maduro clashed with protesters resulting in at least four dead and dozens injured.

Opposition leader Juan Guaido led hundreds of protesters in an effort to escort aid trucks through the cordon of soldiers, but they were turned back by tear gas. Eyewitnesses say the soldiers then set fire to several aid trucks filled with desperately needed food for the populace.Guaido will meet with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence tomorrow and other regional leaders to discuss possible “multilateral action” against Venezuela.Senator Marco Rubio said that “the actions of President Nicolás Maduro’s regime on Saturday had ‘opened the door to various potential multilateral actions not on the table just 24 hours ago.'”

“Three trucks of aid caught fire as they approached the first border checkpoints at the Santander and Simón Bolivar bridges connecting Venezuela to Colombia. It is not clear how those fires were started.There were injuries on both sides of the crossing, with Colombian authorities reporting at least 285 wounded.” CONTINUE AT SITE