RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/transgenderism-is-no-longer-a-fringe-issue/

In 2001 in the United Kingdom, an individual named Karen White saw the inside of a prison cell for child abuse. Then, in 2003, Karen White raped a woman. Then in 2016, White raped two more women.

Her Majesty’s Prison Service thought that the best place to Karen White, while the rape trial was pending, would be a women’s prison — there White assaulted female inmates. (Still with me?) The prosecutor explained, “Her penis was erect and sticking out of the top of her trousers.”

“Her penis”? Strange — “women don’t have penises” — many might think, just as a student at Durham University did when he tweeted that exact phrase. But because of transgender orthodoxy, this is no longer a reasonable thought to share. He learned the hard way:

Less than a month after sending that tweet, I had lost my position as president-elect of Humanist Students as well as my role as assistant editor of Durham University’s philosophy society’s undergraduate journal, Critique. I was also given the boot as co-editor-in-chief of Durham University’s online student magazine, the Bubble. All for saying something that many people would surely agree with.

Now perhaps he might have included some tactful qualifications. For instance, he might also have tweeted something like:

Gender dysphoria is a medically and morally complicated condition, and it is decent to treat such people with compassion and tact.

Or:

Some adults with gender dysphoria may prefer a transgender identity or surgery and — though they should be provided with all the available information — this decision is ultimately the (adult) patient’s prerogative.

But I wager that it would not have made the slightest bit of difference. The student’s crime was stating the obvious; those who do so with nuance seldom fare better. You see, when it comes to transgender doctrine, the options available are an ebullient celebration or total silence. Everything else is “hate speech.”

Think I exaggerate? What else could explain why British MPs were not allowed to debate the issues raised by Karen White’s case. As James Kirkup over at The Spectator writes:

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/09/bound_for_a_runoff_down_in_brazil.html

Down in Brazil, there is a presidential election in a few weeks. The election is happening in the context of a slow-growing economy, corruption battles, violence out of control, and the stabbing of a presidential candidate.

The latest is from Reuters:

Fernando Haddad, the presidential candidate for Brazil’s leftist Workers Party (PT), is closing the gap with poll-leading far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro for an Oct. 7 first-round vote and would beat him in a runoff, a survey released Monday showed.

Bolsonaro held steady at 28 percent of voter approval in the first round as compared to the same Ibope poll released last week. Haddad gained three percentage points to hit 22 percent, according to the survey, released by the Estado de S.Paulo newspaper and the Globo TV network.

We will see.

I did speak with a friend down in Sao Paulo yesterday. He basically agrees with the poll and the suggestion that Haddad would win the runoff. At the same time, my friend said that the issues, the violence and corruption, favor Mr. Bolsonaro.

It’s true that Bolsonaro has a little Trump in him and that he often speaks without thinking. He has promised a no-nonsense policy against criminal elements.

Of course, the bottom line is how the other candidates react and who they endorse in the second round.

So let’s come back to this after the first round in a couple of weeks.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/09/australia_the_south_pacific_frontline_in_the_battle_against_foreign_interference.html

When many Americans think of Australia, things like white sandy beaches, kangaroos, and Steve Irwin come to mind – an image that is at times more of a caricature than an actual country.

What actually goes on in Australia, especially in its politics, is an unknown to most people not from the Land Down Under. It’s usually not that well covered by the media, especially since the advent of Brexit and Donald Trump’s presidency.

There is, however, an extremely dangerous trend in Australian politics that should concern lawmakers and political regulatory bodies across the democratic world. That’s the foreign interference and strong-arming within Australia’s political sphere.

Americans are most familiar with the foreign interference in the democratic process stemming from the allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. election of 2016. But in Australia, politicians at both a state and a federal level have been forced to resign after being caught in involvement with companies or individuals with ties to the Communist Party of China.

The Chinese influence in Australian politics is already very real, as the country relies heavily on China economically for its continued prosperity.

Australia managed to dodge the “Great Recession” largely as a result of Chinese domestic stimulus measures that boosted the Australian resources and mining sectors. The Chinese stimulus allowed Australia to not only avoid recession, but enjoy an economic boom while the rest of the world suffered through the global financial crisis. Since then, sectors of the Australian economy have become more and more dependent on Chinese consumers and capital.

In recent years, Australia has undergone a major apartment-building boom underpinned by Chinese investors purchasing the properties. The boom has become so large as a result that Australian cities have more large cranes working on construction projects than the United States, despite having less than 8% of the U.S. population. In addition to that, Australian universities have become increasingly reliant on Chinese students, with 31% of the 525,054 foreign students in the country coming from China.

Director of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Focus Group Michael Fay said: “[I]f anything happens to the Chinese market, such as with a downturn in the economy or problems with visas, Australia would be very exposed.”

In essence, Australia is economically addicted to the capital and revenue Chinese consumers can provide, giving China incredible leverage over a country that has enjoyed economic prosperity without a recession for over 26 years.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13023/help-iran-people

Are the Iranian people actually seeking regime change? If they are, why have past protests failed and how can current demonstrations have a better chance of success?
Currently, Iranians who oppose the Islamist regime are an unarmed population, bereft of leadership, and faced down by hardened militia units that are ultra-loyal to the economic benefits of backing the theocrats in power.
The tragic reality, however, is that without further help to the people of Iran who want an end to repressive laws — as well as to the regime’s squandering of money domestically for corruption and repression, and abroad to fund terrorism and aggression — we may not see a change either in Iran’s regime or its behavior.

During a recent speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hinted that America would support the Iranian people should they seek to replace their regime. “While it is ultimately up to the Iranian people to determine the direction of their country,” Pompeo said, “the United States…. will support [their] long-ignored voice…”

What “direction,” then, is that? Are the Iranian people actually seeking regime change? If they are, why have past protests failed and how can current demonstrations have a better chance of success?

Some commentators are suggesting that today’s demonstrations indicate that the regime of the mullahs may be in trouble. This idea is partly based on the recollection that the general structure of Tehran and other cities remain much as it did in the late 1970s, when merchants played a critical role in the overthrow of the late Shah Reza Pahlavi.[1] Today, however, the political power, financial strength and religious influence of the bazaar class is much reduced.[2]

Within two years of establishing the Islamic Republic, however, the theocratic regime carried out a massive purge of politically active businessmen in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar;[3] presently, economic influence is in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and ideological theocrats affiliated with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. The IRGC is now a powerful economic conglomerate in Iran, with IRGC veterans heading major industries. IRGC retirees are able to take economic advantage of their political contacts in the Majles, Iran’s parliament, many of whose members are also IRGC veterans.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/europes-bad-iran-bet-1537916797

President Trump will lead a United Nations Security Council session Wednesday on weapons of mass destruction and Iran, and European leaders are signaling that they’re more than willing to disagree with the U.S. Meanwhile, Europeans are looking for ways to duck U.S. financial sanctions—without much success.

On Monday European Commission foreign-affairs chief Federica Mogherini unveiled a new “special-purpose vehicle” to facilitate trade with Iran after U.S. sanctions go back into effect in November. Restoring Iran’s access to the global financial system and trade was a central plank of the 2015 nuclear pact. Ms. Mogherini and the three European co-signers of the deal—Germany, France and Britain—have been scrambling to keep those commercial benefits and they view trade as the main carrot for Tehran to comply.

Recent months have shown what a diplomatic mistake this has been. European companies have withdrawn from Iran to avoid U.S. sanctions, despite the European Union’s so-called blocking statute barring compliance with this U.S. pressure. Access to the U.S. market and financial system are too important no matter how noisily European diplomats complain about the Trump Administration.

Brussels also hasn’t found a financial workaround for Iranian trade. Vague proposals to establish direct links between Iran’s central bank and its European counterparts to move euros have faltered in part because European central banks and finance ministries worry about Iran’s money laundering.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13021/north-korea-takeover

Throughout his visit to North Korea, South Korean President Moon Jae-in went out of his way to downplay the legitimacy of the government he leads and the country he was elected to represent. He was not asserting South Korea’s right to exist.
Up to now, the South’s textbooks have stated that Seoul is “the only legitimate government on the Korean Peninsula.” New textbooks, however, do not include that declaration.
Moon, unfortunately, has undermined democracy in tangible ways. Since becoming president in May of last year, he has used control of big broadcasters to reduce access to dissenting views and to promote North Korea’s. Alarm is now widespread.
If all this were not enough, Moon is taking down defenses along invasion and infiltration routes into Seoul and proposing substantial reductions in the South Korean military. Americans should care because by treaty they are obligated to defend the South.

Kim Jong Un assembled a reported 100,000 people, many waving his North Korean flag or the blue-and-white unification standard, to greet Moon Jae-in, the president of South Korea, as he arrived in Pyongyang on September 18.

President Moon did not seem to mind that no one was holding the symbol of his country, the Republic of Korea. “What was glaringly missing was the South Korean flag,” Taro O of the Pacific Forum told Gatestone in e-mailed comments. “Maybe South Korean people take comfort in seeing that Samsung’s Lee Jae-yong wore the South Korean flag badge on the lapel of his jacket while in North Korea. No one in the Moon administration did.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-nasty-brexit-threatens-the-west-1537831191
Like many divorces, the struggle between the European Union and the United Kingdom gets more bitter as time drags on. At last week’s EU summit in Salzburg, Austria, the assembled countries, led by France, contemptuously brushed aside British Prime Minister Theresa May’s “Chequers” Brexit plan. Flexing its muscles, the EU made its message clear: Britain must conform to our demands.

If there is no deal by March 29, 2019, onerous trade barriers will snap into place. The likelihood that post-Brexit Britain will suffer severe economic shocks and dislocation is growing.

Mrs. May’s Chequers plan would allow British goods to continue to be sold freely in the EU after Brexit, while services would be governed under different rules. In return, Britain would accept EU standards governing manufactured and agricultural products. From the perspective of many Europeans, even those who sympathize with the U.K., the plan looks like an effort to continue to enjoy the advantages of EU membership while opting out of the obligations, like accepting migration from other EU countries. Moreover, EU leaders reason that if the path of secession is shown to be easy, more departures could follow and the union will be inexorably weakened.

Many Brexit opponents, both in the U.K. and on the Continent, hope that the chaos of a “no deal” Brexit will bring about a second British referendum. Next time, they hope, a chastened British public will vote to remain. But repeating the referendum until the people vote the “right” way is more likely to fan the flames of populist anti-Brussels sentiment around the EU than to quell them.

The U.S. has so far not been involved in the discussions between the U.K. and its EU partners. This is not because it has no interest in the matter. From America’s standpoint, a no-deal Brexit that weakens Britain and poisons EU-U.K. relations would be a disaster. It would undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and one of America’s most important and valued allies. And if a radicalized Labour Party takes power in the wake of a Brexit calamity, the survival of the trans-Atlantic alliance could be at risk. The U.K. itself could come apart. It is crucial from the U.S. perspective that any divorce settlement maintain Western and allied cohesion in a dangerous world.

Some Europeans may view Brexit mainly as a matter of economics, but it is also inescapably a major security concern for the West. The relationship between post-Brexit Britain and the rest of the West cannot be evaluated simply as an internal matter for the EU. Britain may be leaving the EU, but it is not leaving the American-led Western alliance. The implications of a nasty and brutal Brexit for the Atlantic community are too consequential for Washington to ignore.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-man-behind-the-curtain-in-corbyns-oz-a-virulently-anti-israel-spin-doctor/
One Labour insider says that because of top aide Seumas Milne, if the party came to power ‘Israel would have to assume diplomatic relations were unofficially null and void’

In the court of Jeremy Corbyn, few wield more power and evoke stronger reactions than Seumas Milne.

The British Labour party leader’s director of communications and strategy, Milne is a hardline and uncompromising left-winger, and a fierce opponent of Israel. If Corbyn makes it to Downing Street, his most senior aide is likely to act as an outrider, reinforcing and encouraging an anti-Zionist agenda that will be unprecedented in a West European state.

But Milne’s hostility to Israel and his hard-left politics are not a matter of mere speculation. Unlike many spin doctors and political strategists whose professional life has been largely lived behind the scenes, Milne has spent decades center stage.

Before joining Corbyn’s team in 2015, Milne was a longstanding senior journalist and columnist at The Guardian, Britain’s most prominent liberal daily newspaper. From that perch, he left a trail of writings that have landed him at the center of the continuing controversy over the Labour party’s refusal to adopt in full the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism.

Milne’s establishment credentials are impeccable. The son of a former director general of the BBC, he was educated at Winchester, one of Britain’s leading public schools, and then went on to study at Balliol College, Oxford.

As former editor of the center-left New Statesman magazine Peter Wilby noted in a 2016 profile of Milne: “Many privately educated young people from elite backgrounds [who came of age during the 1970s] embraced revolutionary politics.”

At boarding school, he stood as a Maoist in a mock election, while a gap year spent in Lebanon sowed an enduring sympathy for the Palestinians.

“He spent his entire time at Balliol wearing a Mao jacket and talking with a fake Palestinian accent,” one of Milne’s fellow students told Wilby. “It was like performance art, the sort of thing Gilbert and George [British artists] would do. He launched a string of motions in the JCR [junior common room] attacking Israel.”

But, unlike his contemporaries — though like his boss — Milne appears never to have outgrown his youthful support for the far left or antipathy toward the West.
Not a journalist, rather a ‘propagandist’

https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-warns-russia-deploying-s-300-in-syria-would-be-major-mistake/?utm_source=Breaking+News&utm_campaign=breaking-news-2018-09-24-1930169&utm_medium=emai

Israeli security cabinet to meet Tuesday over developments

Both Jerusalem and Washington warned Russia on Monday evening against its declared intention to provide the Syrian military with advanced surface-to-air missiles within two weeks, saying the move would further destabilize the region and increase already high tensions.

Israel’s high-level security cabinet was set to meet Tuesday morning to discuss the latest developments.

Russian President Vladimir Putin informed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the decision to provide Syria with the S-300 system in a phone call Sunday.

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In response, according to a statement by Netanyahu’s office, “The prime minister said providing advanced weapons systems to irresponsible actors will magnify dangers in the region, and that Israel will continue to defend itself and its interests.”

Concurrently US National Security Adviser John Bolton said Russia’s announcement was a “major mistake” that would cause a “significant escalation” of tensions. He urged Moscow to reconsider.

Channel 10 News quoted a senior American official who noted that the system could endanger US Air Force jets operating against Islamic State in Syria.

“Bringing more anti-aircraft missiles into Syria won’t solve the Syrian army’s unprofessional and indiscriminate firing of missiles and won’t mitigate the danger to aircraft flying in the area,” the unnamed official said.

Russia made the announcement following last week’s downing of a Russian plane by Syria in a friendly fire incident that killed 15 Russia soldiers. The Russian military’s reconnaissance Ilyushin Il-20 was shot down by Syrian missile defense systems responding to an Israeli airstrike.

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/09/women-can-violent-men/

Violence by women against men receives little attention, yet nearly four decades of research reveals they are also targets of physical abuse. Why the silence? Because the activists’ ultimate goal is to tar all men, not just the relatively few perpetrators, as a collective and universally guilty group.

You may have heard of a Perth-based family counsellor who was forced to resign from Relationships Australia WA (RAWA) after posting on his private Facebook page an article social commentator Bettina Arndt wrote a few years ago for the Weekend Australian.[1] The article summarised the latest official statistics and research on domestic violence, providing evidence that most domestic violence is two-way, involving women as well as men.[2] This was regarded as a breach of policy, because, on its own website, RAWA says its domestic violence policy “is historically framed by a feminist analysis of gendered power relations” which, contrary to the international evidence, denies women’s role in domestic violence.[3]

By endorsing a feminist policy that is so morally bankrupt (and punishing a well-respected counsellor for refusing to do so)[4], this government-funded institution displays a disturbing lack of compassion for the wellbeing of all the male victims of domestic violence. RAWA’s policy is based on a discredited approach that perpetuates the false assumption that domestic violence is always perpetrated by men against women. And yet, data keeps mounting which indicate that domestic violence may be perpetrated by both men and women against their partners. A decade ago an official letter by the Harvard Medical School declared that “the problem is often more complicated, and may involve both women and men as perpetrators”. Based on the findings of an analysis of more than 11,000 American men and women aged eighteen to twenty-eight, the letter concluded:

When the violence is one-sided … women were the perpetrators about 70% of the time. Men were more likely to be injured in reciprocally violent relationships (25%) than were women when the violence was one-sided (20%). That means both men and women agreed that men were not more responsible than women for intimate partner violence. The findings cannot be explained by men’s being ashamed to admit hitting women, because women agreed with men on this point.[5]

The Harvard Medical School’s letter was based on a seminal work published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2007. Written by four experts in the field (Daniel J. Whitaker, Tadesses Laileyesus, Monica Swahn and Linda S. Saltman), it seeks to examine the prevalence of reciprocal (that is, two-way) and non-reciprocal domestic violence, and to determine whether reciprocity is related to violence and injury.[6] After analysing the data, which contained information about domestic violence reported by 11,370 respondents on 18,761 heterosexual relationships, the following conclusions were reached:

● A woman’s perpetration of domestic violence is the strongest predictor of her being a victim of partner violence;[7]

● Among relationships with non-reciprocal violence, women were reported to be the perpetrator in a majority of cases; [8]

● Women reported greater perpetration of violence than men did (34.8 per cent against 11.4 per cent, respectively).[9]

One explanation for these significant findings is that men are simply less willing than women to report hitting their partner. “This explanation cannot account for the data, however, as both men and women reported a larger proportion on nonreciprocal violence perpetrated by women than by men.”[10] In fact, the authors explain that women’s greater perpetration of violence was reported by both women (female perpetrators = 24.8 per cent, male perpetrators = 19.2 per cent) and by men (female perpetrators = 16.4 per cent, male perpetrators = 11.2 per cent).[11] Based on the information available, the authors concluded:

Our findings that half of relationships with violence could be characterised as reciprocally violent are consistent with prior studies. We are surprised to find, however, that among relationships with nonreciprocal violence, women were the perpetrators in a majority of cases, regardless of participant gender. One possible explanation for this, assuming that men and women are equally likely to initiate physical violence, is that men, who are typically larger and stronger, are less likely to retaliate if struck first by their partner. Thus, some men may be following the norm that “men shouldn’t hit women” when struck first by their partner.[12]