RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13560/italy-anti-eu-axis

“Today begins a journey that will continue in the coming months for a different Europe, for a change of the European Commission, of European policies, which puts at the center the right to life, work, health, safety, all that the European elites, financed by [billionaire Hungarian philanthropist George] Soros and represented by Macron, deny….” — Matteo Salvini, Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior.

“Both President Macron and Mrs. Merkel have expressed frustration at the rise of populism and nationalism, and at Europe’s dithering in the face of problems such as climate change and mass migration….” — The Times.

“The only certainty I have of the European elections is that the socialists and the communists will always be less in Brussels — they have already done enough damage….” — Matteo Salvini.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini is leading an effort to create a pan-European populist alliance to challenge the pro-European establishment over the future of the European Union. The aim is to reclaim sovereignty from unelected bureaucrats in Brussels and transfer key EU powers back to national capitals.

Germany and France, the self-appointed guardians of European integration, are responding to the challenge with an ambitious counterplan to make the European Union a “more decisive power on the world stage.”

The showdown, which threatens to split the European Union down the middle between Eurosceptic nationalists and Europhile globalists, will heat up in coming weeks and months, ahead of elections for the European Parliament in late May 2019.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/272463/checking-sweden-bruce-bawer

I’ve told this one before. Back in 2005, Mona Sahlin, who from 2002 to 2004 had served as Sweden’s minister of integration, told an audience at a Swedish mosque that many native Swedes envied them, because, she said, immigrants have real cultures and histories while Swedes have only “silliness” such as the commemoration of Midsummer Night. Later that year, at a debate on integration policy, the Norwegian activist Hege Storhaug asked Lise Bergh, who had succeeded to the post of Swedish minister of integration, whether Swedish culture was worth preserving. Blithely, Bergh replied: “Well, what is Swedish culture? And by saying that, I think I’ve answered the question.”

Those two appalling comments reflect a mentality – one that is shared, unfortunately, by a great many Swedes – that goes a long way toward explaining the breathtakingly self-destructive policies that, over the last few decades, have sent Sweden barreling down the road toward cultural self-annihilation. Of course, other Western European countries are headed down the same road, but they aren’t moving quite so quickly and eagerly, and with such a fatuous, pathetic air of self-satisfaction, toward their grim fate. The difference lies entirely in that Swedish mentality. Even more than most other Western Europeans, Swedes, especially the self-consciously sophisticated urban elites, are possessed of a degree of self-abnegation that is nothing short of pathological.

Consider this. In the U.S., we have “Native Americans.” Canada has the “First Nations.” Australia has its “aborigines.” What all these peoples have in common is that they were there first. In Sweden, the native peoples, the ur-folk, are, needless to say, the Swedes themselves. There are ten million of them, and they’ve been there for millennia. But when establishment journalists and politicians in Sweden refer to their country’s “indigenous people,” they’re not talking about themselves. No, they’re talking about the 20,000 Sami (also known as Lapps or Laplanders) who live way up in the far northern reaches of Sweden, tending reindeer and wearing funny red outfits.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/01/free_speech_is_dead_in_canada_the_persecution_of_christian_activist_bill_whatcott.html

In the past year, I witnessed two frightening assaults on free speech by a kangaroo “justice” system. This wasn’t in some banana republic, North Korea, or China; it was in Canada. These were gut-wrenching experiences for me.

These stories from Canada are potent warnings to the U.S.

If Congress and more states pass anti-discrimination “equality” laws giving special protection to LGBTQ identities, “hate speech” prosecutions and compelled speech will surely follow.

There can be no doubt of that, given the LGBT-driven lawsuits we have already seen against florists, bakers, and wedding photographers. The Civil Rights Commission of Colorado has tried to compel speech from Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop. We’re seeing numerous battles over bathroom use and forced use of silly pronouns in our media, colleges, and public schools. The EEOC already interprets Title VII (employment) to protect employees from “sexual orientation” discrimination.

So, we’re already on that totalitarian road; Canada is just farther along.

An Enemy of the Canadian State

The victim of Canada’s repressive “injustice” system is Bill Whatcott, a pro-family born-again Christian activist. He is about to have his life ruined by the courts in Canada (with fines, possible jail time, ruined employment prospects, social ostracism). But he will not bend to tyranny and is standing for free speech.

Whatcott’s two ongoing cases are discussed below.

December 2018: His “hate speech” hearing before the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal (with further court action pending). Hundreds of thousands in fines may be assessed.
2019: His ongoing $104-million lawsuit in Toronto for a “hate crime” (preceded by his June 2018 arrest on a national criminal warrant).

What terrible “hate crimes” did Whatcott commit? The Orwellian tyrants in Canada deem it criminal to speak the truth about transgender ideology and the health hazards of homosexuality. Furthermore, he speaks from the unwanted Christian viewpoint. Then he adds a dash of humor. And so he has become an Enemy of the State in Canada.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/guatemala-gives-the-u-n-the-boot-11547411965?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=0&cx_tag=collabctx&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s

While President Trump has been tangling with Congress over security solutions along the U.S. southern border, the United Nations has provoked a political crisis in Guatemala. The U.S. is unlikely to make progress on the former without paying attention to the latter.

The U.N.’s Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, or CICIG, began work in 2007 with a mandate to investigate illicit security forces and clandestine organizations and to support the Guatemalan attorney general in prosecuting organized crime. Yet in 11 years, CICIG has secured precious few successful prosecutions and none among high-level politicians.

Meanwhile it has undermined confidence in the Guatemalan justice system, and CICIG Commissioner Iván Velásquez has become a lightning rod for controversy. Last Monday Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales gave the commission 24 hours to leave the country. CICIG complied—for now.

According to people familiar with the matter, the Morales government had brought credible complaints to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres about CICIG witness tampering, illegal negotiations with convicted criminals, and prolonged, illegal preventive detention as a form of psychological torture. It complained that a CICIG official publicly stated that the commission is above the Guatemalan Constitution.

Stéphane Dujarric, the U.N. secretary-general’s spokesman, told me by email on Thursday that the U.N. doesn’t believe CICIG is above the constitution. But he said “the management and running of the commission are the responsibility of the Commissioner. Questions relating to personnel should be addressed to the Commission itself.” In the U.N.’s eyes, Mr. Velásquez answers to no higher power.

Mr. Morales wanted Mr. Velásquez replaced. One person familiar with the matter told me that the secretary-general gave his word to Mr. Morales in September that within two weeks the U.N. would provide names of three candidates to take over the job.

According to Mr. Dujarric, the secretary-general “had proposed the appointment of a CICIG Deputy Commissioner. The President of Guatemala had expressed his agreement with such a plan, as had Commissioner Velásquez.”

The U.N. version of events may well be true. But by last week, Mr. Velásquez still had not been replaced. On Jan. 5, a CICIG employee who had been expelled by the Guatemalan government for security reasons forced his way back into the country. Two days later the foreign minister announced CICIG had to leave.

CICIG supporters claim the commission was close to exposing rampant corruption by Mr. Morales. But he has been in office since January 2016, and CICIG has launched only two formal investigations that might affect him. Neither involves a serious crime.

In the first case, the president’s brother and son were found to have made false invoices for 564 Christmas gift baskets sold to the National Property Registry Office in 2013. Multiple invoices seem to have been drafted at the request of the government office to hide the aggregate value of the purchase (roughly $30,000) because it would have triggered the need for a bidding process.

This is an administrative violation, hardly the heist of the century. Even so, CICIG locked up the president’s relatives for 35 days in January 2017. The case still hasn’t been resolved.

A second case concerns the hiring, by Morales backers, of poll watchers for his National Convergence Front party during the 2015 presidential election. The party didn’t record this “in kind” donation worth roughly $1 million.

This was probably also an administrative violation. Regardless, Congress has already said that there is insufficient evidence against Mr. Morales in the case to warrant the removal of his immunity. There is another alleged campaign-finance violation, but there has been no formal accusation. CONTINUE AT SITE