RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/iran-coming-apart-at-the-seams/

Economically, Iran is in the process of coming apart. Its GDP steadily sinks. More than 40% of Iranians are now living below the poverty line. The rial is at an historic low, having lost 25% of its value just since September; it now stands at 820,000 rials to a dollar. Since the establishment of the Islamic government in 1979, the Iranian currency has undergone an 11,000-fold decline in value.

Politically Iran is on its back foot. It has seen all of its major allies, that were formerly part of Iran’s “Shi’a crescent” — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Assad regime in Syria —fall away. In Gaza, Hamas is being systematically dismantled by the IDF, with 20,000 of its fighters killed and many more wounded. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has been battered by the IDF. Four thousand of its operatives have been killed, thousands more wounded, and 80% of its once-formidable arsenal of rockets and missiles destroyed by the IAF. Hezbollah had to beg for a ceasefire that requires it to remove all of its men and weapons north of the Litani River. In Syria, the rebels have toppled the Assad despotism, and once the loyal ally of Iran, Syria has now become the archenemy of the Islamic Republic, precisely because Iran for so long supported the Assad regime. Iran invested $50 billion in keeping Assad in power; now that $50 billion has gone up in smoke, and the Iranian people are keenly aware of that loss, which has enraged many of them.

More on the current dismal of Iran’s economy, its military weakness, and the growing fury of its population with the regime of the mullahs, can be found here: “$50 billion to Syria vanished into thin air: Unrest in Iran grows over economic turmoil – interview,” by Peled Arbeli, Jerusalem Post, January 10, 2025:

Iran’s public discontent surged in recent weeks as economic hardships, including widespread power outages and rising inflation, fueled calls for change, Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) researcher Benny Sabti told Maariv on Friday.

https://pjmedia.com/david-solway-2/2025/01/22/danielle-smith-the-only-grown-up-in-the-room-n4936261

Even as most of the country’s provincial premiers and Prime Minister Trudeau are scheming a trade war with the U.S. over President Trump’s threat of imposing tariffs on Canadian goods, Canada’s jingoist glitterati refuse to credit the insight and unflinching character of the one premier, Alberta’s Danielle Smith, who is largely responsible for striving to prevent the disaster. Smith had met with Trump, various governors, senators, and congressional leaders, engaging in rational and mature pre-negotiation discussions treating the contentious tariff issue. She did not come to brandish a cudgel. She came to talk.

The typical Canadian stance, however, was made of equal dollops of bloviation, shortsightedness, and self-infatuation, as press and politicians ganged up on Smith for refusing to join Team Canada’s self-destructive trade vendetta against the threat of U.S. tariffs. Canada’s newspaper of record The Globe and Mail is representative of this mentally sluggish attitude: “Smith is fighting Ottawa rather than Trump’s tariff. This will cost us all.” 

The disingenuous nonsense is palpable since a lax and delinquent Ottawa presiding over a porous border is the culprit here, not Washington. Canada’s new $1.3 billion border security package pales before the $20 billion it sent to defend Ukraine’s borders. For Canada’s primary leftist rag the Toronto Star, Smith’s motives can only be sordid and perhaps even treacherous: “Danielle Smith cozies up to Trump to sell more oil and avoid tariffs”…”Alberta’s premier is playing right into Donald Trump’s hands,” etc. etc. One waits eagerly for such people to crawl back into the woodwork.

https://issuesinsights.com/2025/01/24/whos-even-gloomier-about-trumps-big-win-than-the-dems-global-leaders-at-davos/

Could there be anything less MAGA than the annual gathering of the 55th annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland? This year, with a shriveled attendance, the assembled corporate leaders, socialist governments, assorted big thinkers, United Nations officials, and woke NGOs don’t seem very happy. Indeed, they seem downright glum about their plans for world government run by euro-centric and Third World globalist elites.

Once a favorite place for preening politicians to show their world-humanitarian feathers, the affair has lost some luster.

“This year the leaders of the world’s most powerful nations are skipping the meeting,” Breitbart reported. Why? It seems Trumpism has put a cloud over the once-festive gathering of one-worlders.

Trump addressed the group by video Thursday, stressing that during his second term he would seek to reduce oil and gas prices, slash regulations, cut taxes for domestic companies and put tariffs on goods from countries who treat the U.S. unfairly,

The response by the clique of elitists to Trump’s decidedly non-globalist agenda was entirely predictable, drawing “pockets of laughter and a few moans with his blunt comments to an international audience … “

Laughter? Has the wind gone out of the globalists’ sails? Sure looks that way.

Consider that heavy hitters such as Chinese communist dictator Xi Jinping, India’s President Narendra Modi, France’s President Emmanuel Macron, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, and embattled British Prime Minister Keir Starmer didn’t bother to show up. Only one G7 leader attended: Desperate German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose economy is now shrinking.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/execution-frenzy-in-iran/

The world can no longer ignore the crimes against humanity being committed in Iran. Last year over 1,000 executions took place in 86 of the mullahs’ medieval prisons. Those hanged included 34 women and 7 juvenile offenders, executed after they turned 18. Among those executed were 119 Baluchis, highlighting the disproportionate targeting of this marginalized and oppressed ethnic group.

Barbarically, 4 of the hangings were carried out in public in an attempt to terrify the rebellious youth into placid submission.  Public hangings are generally from a construction crane, an especially slow and agonizing execution method.The frenzy of executions, over 70% of which took place since the so called ‘moderate’ president Masoud Pezeshkian took office in August, are testimony to the theocratic regime’s fear of imminent overthrow.

The psychotic and ageing Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has watched the gradual unraveling of his warmongering stranglehold in the region, with the decapitation of his proxies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The sudden and unexpected fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the Islamic Republic’s greatest ally, has sounded the death knell for the mullahs’ regime. Now, Khamenei can only shudder in anticipation of the arrival of President Donald Trump, with his maximum pressure sanctions campaign and his unwavering antipathy to the Iranian regime’s sponsorship of international terrorism.

Ever since the mullahs hijacked the popular revolution that ousted the dictatorship of the Shah in 1979, they have resorted to bouts of brutal repression at times of crisis to subdue the populace. But their atrocities only strengthen the determination of the Iranian youth to overthrow the fascist tyranny. The regime must be ostracized by the international community and any dealings with it should be conditional on an end to executions and torture. Its leaders must be brought to justice. There can no longer be a business-as-usual approach by Western appeasers. Too much innocent blood is being spilled as Khamenei sets new records for crimes and executions in a bid to delay his inevitable downfall.

According to Amnesty International, the number of executions in Iran in 2023 accounted for about 74% of all documented executions worldwide. That record has been surpassed in 2024. Undeterred, the regime began the New Year with a fresh wave of hangings. 12 people were executed on 1 January 2025. Five prisoners were executed in Qezelhessar prison, five in Bandar Abbas and two more in Yasuj and Malayer. Among those executed were 119 Baluchis, highlighting the disproportionate targeting of this marginalized and oppressed ethnic group.

https://jihadwatch.org/2025/01/democratic-republic-of-congo-muslims-murder-at-least-53-christians-in-two-jihad-attacks-on-the-same-day?utm_

“More Than 50 D. R. Congo Christians Killed in Single Day of Violence,” Barnabas Aid, January 16, 2025:

At least 53 Christians were killed on January 15 in two Islamist attacks in Lubero, North Kivu, north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP, also known as the Allied Democratic Forces) announced the killings in two social media posts, according to the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium (TRAC).

One of the two posts declared, “By the grace of God Almighty, the soldiers of the Caliphate attacked the village of Makoko in the Lubero region and killed 41 Christians [who] were stabbed with knives.”

The other post confirmed killing of 12 others in the village of Masakuki.

The terrorist group also abducted 16 Christians, as well as burning houses and motorcycles.

Attacks of this type have been carried out consistently by ISCAP since the group first affiliated to Islamic State (IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) in 2017. However, the scale and frequency of the attacks has increased in the past few weeks.

Relentless Targeting of Christians

Including the January 15 attacks, at least 128 have been slaughtered in North Kivu and the neighboring province of Ituri since Christmas Day 2024….

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21327/brussels-crumbling

Brussels has entered a wild-west era of “every man for himself,” in which people try to protect themselves as best they can without relying on the failing “authorities.”

Brussels’ financial situation is also alarming.

[Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration] Nicole de Moor… did acknowledge the problem of the high number of Palestinian asylum-seekers in Belgium, and that they had already been recognized elsewhere in Europe. Nevertheless, they demand to come to Belgium: it guarantees them more than any other country in Europe.

Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, the streets and media of Brussels have witnessed the normalization of unabashed Islamist discourse and Jew-hatred — less and less hidden behind the pretext of “the fight against Zionism.”

When President Donald Trump compared Brussels, Belgium to a “hellhole” in 2016, the statement caused quite a stir, especially in Europe, and was treated with that mixture of contempt, ignorance and denial of reality typical of a certain “elite” in the European Union. Trump had made these remarks in the context of discussions on immigration and security, and suggested that Brussels had changed for the worse over the years, mainly as a result of uncontrolled lawless migratory submersion.

While the facts proved him right at the time, it might be said in 2025 that the Lebanonization of Brussels shows that his judgment was visionary.