RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13415/turkey-outrage-khashoggi

There are at least 170 journalists and media workers currently in Turkish jails and prisons, according to the Platform for Independent Journalism.

Hrant Dink, as editor-in-chief of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper, Agos, wrote about the Armenian Genocide. For this he was prosecuted under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code, which makes it illegal to insult Turkey or Turkish government institutions or to “denigrate Turkishness.” Dink was shot dead outside his newspaper’s office in Istanbul on January 19, 2007. Eleven years after the murder, the trial is still in progress.

The Turkish government still has not officially recognized, apologized for, or made reparations on behalf any of these and other such crimes at any time in its history; impunity for past injustices continues to lead to present injustices.

It is high time for members of the Western media to stop relying on Turkish officials as sources of reliable information in their reports on Khashoggi, and start highlighting Turkey’s ongoing deadly persecution of its own journalists.

Since the October 2 murder of Saudi Muslim Brotherhood political activist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been condemning the perpetrators of the “ferocious murder,” vowing that his government would “uncover what has happened” and portraying himself as a champion of human rights.

https://isgap.org/flashpoint/gilets-jaunes-lost-in-the-funhouse/

8-11 PM December 11 Strasbourg: Terrorist attack at the Christmas market. The shooter, wounded and on the run, has been identified as 29–year-old Cherif C. a multi-recidivist criminal who has been flagged as a security risk since 2016. The current tally is two dead, a third victim brain-dead, thirteen wounded, six of them critically.

Since November 17, I have been gathering available information on the Gilets Jaunes (GJs), or “Yellow Vest Movement”, observing, analyzing, and testing my insights against accepted opinion. With rare exceptions, the GJs have been received with exceptional indulgence. The violence they spawn is both condoned and denied…attributed to the GJs and lifted from them by hair-splitting distinctions, as if, in a raging crowd of thousands, one could separate the real GJs from the opportunistic thugs, all dressed in yellow vests, all surging in the same direction. Murderous hatred and unprecedented destruction are dismissed with a Gallic shrug as an epiphenomenon that can’t discredit the voice of the people crying for justice.

What about jihad (the so-called terrorist attacks) on these same streets and boulevards such a short time ago and one after the other? Some commentators and officials did mention the danger of creating opportunities for terrorist attacks in the midst of a Gilet Jaune “demonstration.” But, I told myself, these GJ actions are in themselves terrorism, and these common ordinary Frenchmen are behaving as if they were inspired by Islamic mobs in Kabul, Peshawar, or… Gaza.

How blind, deaf, and dumb to create chaos in an already beleaguered democracy. And now the inevitable has happened. A jihad attack between one Yellow Saturday and the next. The baseless speculation that President Macron would declare a state of emergency to put an end to those pointless actions is becoming a reasonable option.

I still feel as though I have to apologize for my harsh judgment of giletjaunisme. But I will trust my intuition.

Lost in the funhouse

How can the Gilets Jaunes “movement” be evaluated on the basis of a bowdlerized version of their grievances, propositions, and actions, packaged in comparisons with the French Revolution and mai 68 to make a palatable story adapted to a variety of tastes? That narrative cannot encompass the scope, the concrete realities, and the glaring contradictions of an incendiary outburst of negative energy in the heart of a European democracy.

Editor’s note: Below are the video and transcript of remarks given by Geert Wilders at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s 2018 Restoration Weekend. The event was held Nov. 15th-18th at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272252/geert-wilders-restoration-weekend-frontpagemagcom

Robert Spencer: It is my great honor and great pleasure to introduce to all of you tonight the great visionary who is going to be the one who turn things around for Europe and brought about its salvation as a continent upon which free people could still live, and the one man who has stood firm all these years against absolutely extraordinary and crushing pressure to give in, the great, the heroic, Geert Wilders.

Geert Wilders: Thank you. Robert, thank you so much for the most kind words. So, hello America, how are you tonight? It’s an honor for me to be at Restoration Weekend again, and it’s a pleasure to be amongst friends. I see so many here, great people with strong convictions and love for freedom, people who supported me for so many years, like the great David Horowitz himself. Thank you David.

But also Dr. Bob Shillman, Nina Rosenwald, Daniel Pipes, all people that I will have to say thank you so much for all you did, but also please allow me to say a word of respect to a colleague of mine in your own U.S. Congress, a hero, somebody that I respect a lot and was re-elected at the mid‑terms, the congressman from Texas, Louis Gohmert, Louis rise.

Thank you. And of course, I’m not involved in your own domestic politics, but for me one of the best news was, not only that our friend Louis Gohmert, but also that our friend Steve King from Iowa was elected. Congratulations both. And of course, it’s always a pleasure for me to be in the United States, the land of the free and the home of the brave. America is a country that is not afraid to let its own national interests prevail as it should; to do what is best for its own people–the American people–where most of the leaders in my part of the world, Western Europe, cannot even spell the word national, let alone the combination national interest, your country is led by one of the strongest and bravest leaders of the free world, and I honor him from that, Donald J. Trump.

Europe desperately needs more strong leaders like Mr. Trump for we are fighting for our existence, and I’m not exaggerating. Our freedom, our way of life, our culture, our identity, our national security, are at stake and heavily under attack, and the reason for that indeed still is mass immigration and Islamization combined with the total failure, and even betrayal by weak European politicians who are unwilling to fight back.

They, those weak leaders, do not protect us but they facilitate our destruction and when political leaders become pieces of evil, the people must speak, and so we have to do that. And that is why we do speak out and fight back. But, that comes with a price. If you dare to fight back, if you dare to speak the truth about Islam, the authorities and the Islamists will do anything to silence you. You will be taken to court. I have myself been taken to court or threatened to be taken to court in my own country, the Netherlands, in Austria, in Pakistan, in Jordan, in the Islamic Republic of Iran, in Saudi Arabia.

The biggest Muslim country in the world Indonesia declared me persona non grata for life.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-yellow-jackets-are-right-about-green-policies-11544991717

Seek out the most basic cause of the French riots and you’ll come to a bizarre answer: carbon dioxide. More specifically, the demonization by political activists of that vital element of the earth’s atmosphere.

French President Emmanuel Macron stirred popular rage by trying to raise the gasoline tax by about 25 cents a gallon. He argued that higher taxes would reduce fuel use and hence emissions of CO2, helping France meet the lower emissions goals to which it is pledged as a signatory to the United Nations’ Paris Agreement to fight climate change.

Mr. Macron has learned the hard way that voters don’t see climate change as a threat demanding personal sacrifices. The rebellion is global. Green measures that caused energy prices to soar damaged Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany’s 2017 election. Green energy plans were repudiated by voters in Australia and helped cause a political upheaval in the Canadian province of Ontario.

Voters in Washington state and Arizona rejected November ballot measures aimed at reducing CO2 emissions. The Journal’s William McGurn reported last week that 200 prominent civil-rights leaders have filed suit against the California Air Resources Board. Green policies, they argue, are saddling the poor with higher living costs.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272227/france-and-media-during-jihadist-war-howard-rotberg

It is safe to say that there are now two main fronts in what we need to term the Islamist War Against the West. The first has been for many years now the Western liberal democracy of Israel surrounded by genocidal neighbors; the second is France, followed closely by other European countries, Australia, and America.

During the week of December 11th, 2018, two sad things happened and this essay shall attempt to enlighten by placing them together. The first is the recent terrorist attack in Strasbourg France, and the second is the signing by most of the world (with the exception of America, Australia, much of Eastern Europe, and Israel) of the United Nations Global Compact For Safe, Orderly And Regular Migration, which is a mind-boggling attempt to remove sovereignty from nations hesitant to admit Islamist young men and remove freedom of the press to object to the globalist –Islamist agenda.

The Associated Press covered the December 11th shootings at the Strasbourg France Christmas market that killed at least 3 and wounded at least 12 by writing that “The motive for the shooting is unclear. It wasn’t immediately clear if the market was the target of the attack of if there was any link to terrorism.”

It was reported in the article that “France has been hit by several extremist attacks including the 2015 Paris shootings which killed 130 people and wounded hundreds, and a truck attack in Nice that killed dozens in 2016.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13406/brexit-theresa-may

Ardent Brexiteers are increasingly despondent. Many had hoped for a vote of no confidence in Theresa May with a strong Leave-supporting leader installed in her place, prepared to take the United Kingdom out of the untransparent, unaccountable and unable-to-be-voted-out EU.

Instead, Theresa May’s “deal” not to Leave the EU makes the U.K. a vassal state, locked into the EU but without a voice. Leave voters did not vote for a “deal”. They voted to take back the Britain’s sovereignty.

MPs will be torn. The Establishment does not want a no-deal Brexit…. But their constituents — the people who voted them to be their voice in Parliament – do.

Politicians voting to Remain in the U.K. would be doing it in flamboyant disregard of the will of the people — the very people they need to be re-elected.

Theresa May has survived a no confidence vote in the British Parliament. She says she now has a renewed mission; “delivering the Brexit people voted for, bringing the country back together and building a country that works for everyone”.

Whether she has any troops willing to follow her charge is unclear.

https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/12/islams-useful-idiots-cowards-and-quislings/

An Islamist ‘known to police’ rampaged through Bourke Street and left a good man dead. Yesterday in Strasbourg one of his co-religionists did likewise and took many more lives. These outrages are now so common they flicker for a moment in the headlines then vanish and are gone. What do our leaders do? Frisk old ladies at airports and say nary a word against Islam.

It used to be called the Silly Season, now it has turned more into the season of foreboding with the inevitable bloody uptick. The threat of terror attacks across the Western world is the gift from fundamentalist Islam, feckless politicians and a Left intent on diversity at any cost. Today’s atrocity is the terror attack in Strasbourg, France, where three people are confirmed shot dead and numerous injured at a Christmas market. The city is in lockdown and the police are hunting the gunman who was, predictably and unsurprisingly, known to them and on a terrorist watch list. Yet nothing was done until he acted.

All too many people have become so blasé (to use a French word) about these events that Islamist atrocities are the expected, if not fully accepted, normal. The media don’t even report many of the more “minor incidents” such as the stabbing of three women at a train station in the French city of Mulhouse only two days ago. The attacker in that case was captured and, fortunately, none of the victims died. The official story, as is so often the situation now, is that the attacker was suffering from a “mental disorder”. Is anyone even surprised by that explanation anymore?

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/christmas-market-gunman-yelled-allahu-akbar-before-opening-fire/

The gunman who killed two and critically wounded seven Tuesday evening at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France was motivated by Islamic extremism, officials announced Wednesday.

Rémy Heitz, the Paris prosecutor who specializes in terrorism cases, said Wednesday that multiple witnesses heard the man shout “Allahu Akbar” — an Arabic phrase meaning “God is Great” — before opening fire. The attacker, who remains at large, has a criminal record and has served time in prison, according to officials.

“He had been incarcerated multiple times and was known to the prison administration for his radicalization and his proselytizing attitude,” Heitz said of the gunman, a Strasbourg native who has been identified only as Chérif C., 29.

Chérif is one of more than 20,000 individuals identified by French authorities as a potential terror threat, Heitz said. The 29-year-old was flagged with a so-called “S-file,” which stands for La Sûreté de l’État, or security of the state — a designation that doesn’t indicate someone is an imminent threat, but rather that the individual should be monitored.

“The S File can target individuals who aren’t very dangerous, and it is used only to watch their movements and trips around the country,” Mr. Nuñez said. “It isn’t a criterion of dangerousness.”

Police raided Cherif’s home Tuesday morning, just hours before the attack, in an unrelated murder investigation and found a rifle, ammunition, several knives and a grenade. While he had never been convicted on terrorism-related charges, Cerif has an extensive criminal record comprised of 27 convictions for a number of crimes, including several assaults and robberies.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-46547246

Prime Minister Theresa May has won a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative Party by 200 to 117.

Mrs May is now immune from a leadership challenge for a year.

But the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg said the result was “not at all comfortable” for the prime minister and a “real blow” to her authority.

Mrs May won the confidence vote with a majority of 83, with 63% of Conservative MPs backing her and 37% voting against her.

The confidence vote was triggered by 48 of her MPs angry at her Brexit policy, which they say betrays the 2016 referendum result.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, who led calls for the confidence vote, said it was a “terrible result for the prime minister” and called on her to resign.

The result was greeted by cheers and applause from Tory MPs as it was announced by backbench Tory chairman Sir Graham Brady.

The prime minister still faces a battle to get the Brexit deal she agreed with the EU through the UK Parliament, with all opposition parties and dozens of her own MPs against it.

Mrs May earlier vowed to fight on to deliver her Brexit deal, which she argues is the only option for leaving the EU in an orderly way on 29 March.

But in a last-minute pitch to her MPs before the vote she promised to stand down as leader before the next scheduled election in 2022.